The Man Who Forgot

Fandom: Harry Potter

Pairing: Harry/Draco

Warnings/Tropes/Etc: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Mpreg, Past/Referenced Child Abuse, Past/Referenced Character Death

Chapter Length: 23400

Summary: After ten years of marriage, Harry forgets.

The more things change, the more Draco Malfoy is still up to something.

Chapter Eighteen

He fell into memory, a darkness that swirled into yet more darkness. It was so dimly black there, in fact, that at first it might have meant there was something wrong with the memory; that it had been not so much tampered with as damaged in some way. Then there came movement, a familiar figure in the shadows, and it became clear that it was simply very dark, here at what must have been the beginning of things.

The figure moved out of the shadows and into a yellowing sort of light, revealing it to be a much younger Draco: skinnier and with more hair than he'd had earlier in the night, and broader than he'd been as a teenager at Hogwarts, but also made out of what seemed to be quite a lot more angles. He was dressed head to toe in black leather. There were even chains involved, which jingled as he crossed the street and walked into the Stag's End, looking like the world's most enormous prat as he went up to the bar.

Before he'd quite made it there, he stopped short, staring at the figure that had got there ahead of him: a man with black hair that stuck up in all directions. Even from behind there was no question who this was. There must not have been any question for Draco, either, for he made a face, started to turn around, then muttered something which sounded like "Fuck it," and kept on instead.

He took the stool next to the other Harry, who seemed both younger and older than he ought to have been, up close: broader than Harry remembered being at twenty, for certain, but without the gray in his hair he'd had at thirty-nine. Probably without the lines he had on his face now, too, though it was harder to tell this since the entire lower half of the other Harry's face was covered by a thick black beard.

"What are you doing here, Potter?" Draco drawled, even as the other Harry looked over at him. "Don't tell me you're following me."

The other Harry's own startled expression seemed to indicate he hadn't been. "...Malfoy? What are you doing here?"

"Being followed by you, apparently," said Draco, not in the warm, fond tone Harry had got used to, but in a much sharper, more biting one. "It's all a bit pathetic, honestly. You ought to have left your mysterious enmity toward me behind you by now."

The other Harry rolled his eyes very hard. "Sure you're not the one following me?"

"I don't find you nearly as interesting as the rest of the world does, believe me," sneered Draco, very unbelievably considering how much time he'd spent trying to make Harry's life miserable in school. The other Harry shrugged and went back to his drink, eyeing Draco assessingly as Draco gestured for the barman and ordered a drink of his own. Once it had arrived, he picked up the glass it was in, took a slow sip, then said, quite coolly now, "Is there a reason you're staring at me? Is it that I'm fascinating?"

"Yeah," said the other Harry. "Though only because you look like a prat, wearing that."

"What are you babbling about?" Draco looked down at himself as if to check all the chains were still there, then looked back up smugly. "This is a Muggle pub. And these are Muggle clothes."

"That make you look like a prat."

"You can't fool me, Potter. I did my research," said Draco, very unbelievably again. "I even bought them from a Muggle shop."

"A prat-ish one?"

Draco stared a moment, and then, much more coolly than he'd started out with: "One that caters to a...certain clientele. Haven't you noticed what sort of pub this is?" A sort of sneering glee came over his face. "Don't tell me an acclaimed Auror like yourself hadn't picked up on that much. Or, wait-- aren't you an Auror anymore? I think I saw something in the papers about all that, recently..."

A black expression crossed the other Harry's face, quickly covered up. "Hadn't noticed the blokes snogging all over the place, no," he said, also coolly. "Or those ones all but shagging over in the corner. But hadn't you noticed this isn't the kind of pub where anyone else is wearing a get-up like that?"

Draco looked around; Harry tried not to, given the blokes that were evidently shagging in the corner. When Draco looked back, the sourness of his expression along with the pinkening of his cheeks indicated he definitely hadn't noticed before now, and didn't appreciate having it noticed for him, either.

Very shiny, and squeaking a bit every other time he moved, Draco downed the rest of his drink. Neither of them said anything for the next little while, meaning the next few drinks on Draco's part, with the other Harry nursing his current one and then starting on the next. Draco seemed to be stewing; after a sidelong look or two, the other Harry seemed content to ignore him.

"Why are you even here, Potter?" Draco asked a while later, not really drawling, nor quite slurring either, but something in-between. His face was flushed and unhappy, and somehow seemed to have even more angles in it than it had before. "And how do you expect me to pull when you're sitting here being all..."

The other Harry, who seemed to have gone deep into a stew of his own, startled a little, then grinned. "Er. Fit?"

"No!" Draco spluttered. "No one," he added, pulling himself up straight and aiming several wild hand gestures in the direction of Harry's face, "with that amount of disgusting facial hair could ever be referred to as--I can't even repeat it, honestly." He made a gagging noise. "No, I just meant you're sat there--" more hand gestures, which seemed to be aimed at the other Harry's chest this time, "being all, 'look at me, I'm the Boy Who Lived--'" a flinch from the other Harry, which Draco didn't seem to notice, too busy flinging himself into a high-pitched and not at all good Harry impression, "'--not to mention the Chosen One too, no one else will ever get looked twice at while I'm around! Not because I'm so wonderful, but because everyone is always obsessed with me even though I'm actually the most--'"

"This is a Muggle pub, Malfoy," the other Harry interrupted, and fairly loudly.

"So?"

So, no one but you and me knows any of that."

"--Oh," Draco said, flushing even more. "Right. Still, you..."

He didn't finish this thought, or at least not before he'd had some more to drink. The other Harry's drinking seemed to be picking up too. There was a tension there, a weird one, caught between the way they kept glancing at each other, the way whichever one was doing the glancing would keep on looking until the other one seemed in danger of looking back. Harry had an idea what the tension was; he wondered if the other Harry did, yet.

"Dunno what you've got to go to a Muggle pub for, anyhow," Draco complained a good long while later, having apparently got stuck on this subject. "You've got any number of admirers." He made a face which somehow came across as both baffled and disgusted by this fact.

"Well, I know why you've got to." The other Harry had gone flushed, too, long before Draco had started talking again. His glasses were by now crooked upon the bridge of his nose. "You haven't got any."

"You want to watch it, Potter."

"Oh, yeah?" said the other Harry. "Or you could just sod off, if you don't like what I've got to say."

"I don't think you want to talk to me like that," warned Draco, cheeks going bright red.

"Right. So why don't you fuck off out of my pub, then?"

"Your pub? So sorry I missed the Prophet announcement you'd purchased one," Draco said snidely.

The other Harry ignored this. "It's easy, fucking off. You just go back out the door, and there you're at." He knocked back the rest of his drink and added, "Wouldn't stop you from pulling, either. Just chat up some nice Muggle bloke on your way out."

"Maybe I will," Draco said. "Maybe I'll find myself one and go shag him in the loo, just for you."

"Good by me," the other Harry said cheerily, as if he didn't feel the charge that seemed to have been building in the air between them, the one that had had three or four blokes starting to approach one or the other of them over the last little while, only to abruptly change direction once they got within five feet of their section along the bar. "So long as you fucked off after."

"Alright." Draco turned to scan the room, which had begun filling since he'd got there, so that it could now be called properly packed. "Off I go, then. If you pay attention, you just might learn how it's done," he added, and got up, and went over to the small dark corridor the bathroom was located at, passing at least three of the blokes who'd noticed him before along the way. He didn't seem to notice them now any more than he had done before, though at least two of them were noticing him.

As Draco got to the corridor, the pub dissolved, and everything else with it. A new memory formed: Draco, leaned against a wall of the bathroom, which was not quite as small as Harry had remembered, but at least twice as dingy. From the outside of the bathroom came voices, one familiar and the other not so much. Draco perked up, listening. A few seconds later, the voices stopped again. There came a long pause, during which Draco glanced in the smudged mirror above the sink, and ran his fingers through his hair, mussing it; then he had another look, pulled a face at what he saw there, and took out his wand to tidy it back up instead.

The doorhandle turned hesitantly. Draco shoved his wand back into his trousers and went back to leaning against the bathroom wall, just as casually as if he'd been like that all along.

The door opened. The other Harry came inside, closing it behind him.

"Took you long enough," Draco said. "Come to see how it's done, then?"

"Er," said the other Harry, slowly, and--definitely at least tipsily. "I just wanted to see what you were doing. In here by yourself." With a clear and squinting suspicion, he added, "What're you doing? Are you up to something?"

At least Draco didn't seem any better, his cheeks so red and blotchy he might've been sunburnt instead. "I told you already, I'm getting myself shagged in the loo."

"Yeah, but," said the other Harry, more slowly yet. "There's no one else --hey."

Draco laughed, probably at the deepening suspicion on the other Harry's face. It wasn't a nice laugh, exactly, but it also wasn't exactly a nasty one. "Scared, Potter?" he asked.

"No!" said the other Harry hotly. "--Wait, of what?"

"Good," said Draco, and, leaning forward--which was all it took, since the bathroom, while less small than Harry remembered, was still not very much space at all for two grown men to occupy at the same time--kissed the other Harry messily on the mouth.

In the next second, they sprang apart, the other Harry's back hitting the door, Draco's pressing against the not at all far wall.

"Er!" the other Harry said.

"Um," said Draco. He swallowed loudly, eyes gone very wide. "I'll just be..." he added, gesturing toward the other Harry, or perhaps just at the door that was behind him. "Going. Shall I?"

Maybe, if Draco had managed to escape, the other Harry would have woken up at St Mungo's twenty-odd years later to find out he was married to a stranger, or at least someone he'd liked better at school. But it really was a very small bathroom, and even with the other Harry trying to get out of his way, they still ended up colliding.

"Watch it, Potter," Draco said, when the collision was still a pretty minor one, his arm brushing against the other Harry's on his way out the door.

"Er," said the other Harry again, and tilted forward instead of moving out of the way. "How about--" and then the tilt became a proper lean, and then his mouth was on Draco's, so that he stumbled forwards, and Draco backwards, until Draco's back was against the wall again. Draco didn't seem to mind it, though, any more than the other Harry seemed to mind Draco's hands on his arse, several fumbling seconds later...

It became very obvious what this was meant to be, and how quickly it was going to be it. Then, just as they started to tug at each other's clothes, the room filled with a thick white fog, which seemed to contain within it a very pointy silence, too.

"Er, what..." Harry started, but there was no one there to ask, and anyway, he already knew: this part of the memory had been tampered with. Not for any kind of nefarious reason, but because Draco had thought he wouldn't want to see what was happening now.

Would he have wanted to see it? Even though it was the other Harry instead of him? Harry was still undecided when, a few minutes later, the fog lifted again. Sight returned, and sound, and--smell. The last of which would have made it really obvious what had happened even if the other Harry hadn't had his shirt on backwards, and Draco's trousers hadn't been still partway down his thighs.

"How'd you get them on to start with?" asked the other Harry gruffly, reaching over to give Draco's trousers a good upward tug. This did not seem to have any result whatsoever.

"Magic, obviously," Draco sneered, though he had also gone even more brightly red.

"Magic," the other Harry repeated flatly. "You were trying to pull at a Muggle pub, and you used magic to get yourself into your trousers."

"They're Muggle clothes, Potter. A Muggle would have known what to do with them." Draco swatted the other Harry's hand's away. "Stop trying to--you're only making it worse! Should have known you'd be useless."

"Right, then. So what spell did you use to--"

"Don't you point that thing at my--!"

In the moment between Draco saying this (and very shrilly, too) and the moment where the other Harry put his wand away, something seemed to change in the air between them. For the other Harry it was easy to guess what it was: something along the lines having been kissed by Draco Malfoy and not having minded it, only a bit more extreme and rather a lot more completely random.

"Er," said the other Harry.

"I've got it," said Draco loudly. "No further assistance required!"

"I. Er. Alright. Right." The other Harry gestured at the bathroom door. "I'll just be--"

"Suppose you'd better," said Draco faintly.

"Be seeing you, I guess," said the other Harry, and then, much too loudly: "Er, thanks, Malfoy!"

He all but ran out the door, which slammed behind him. A moment later, there came a loud cracking sound from out in the hallway.

After several tries, Draco got his wand back out. Several more, and he managed to make his trousers go up a few sizes, and then, once they were settled on his hips, shrunk them down again. Then he turned on the tap and splashed water on his face for a while. The whole time, he was wild-eyed, pretty clearly on the edge of panic.

"What the fuck," he said to himself, splashing away. "What just happened, what the fuck was that--"

Maybe freakout was the better word than panic, Harry thought as Draco finally turned the tap back off and wiped his face on a paper towel. By the time he'd finished this, he seemed calmer, or at least had stopped muttering to himself about how fucked it all was. He took another look in the mirror and cast a couple things at his hair and skin that made him look a bit less like he'd just been shagging practically in public. Then he headed out of the bathroom, stopping in the doorway to look at something on the floor. Harry looked too, and saw that there was a large amount of black hair lying just outside the bathroom door.

"'Er,' you're welcome," Draco muttered snidely, and Vanished all the hair.

In the next moment, the memory dissolved again.

*

The next memory started out much the same: dark alley, shadowy figure, so on. Draco was at least dressed in normaller clothes this time. He stepped into the Stag's End, where the other Harry was once again sat at the bar.

"Following me around again, Potter? How embarrassing for you."

"Yeah," said the other Harry. "I followed you to my usual pub so closely I got here before you. Incredible detective work, I'm really impressed."

"Yes, I'm considering applying to the Aurors. I keep hearing there's an opening," said Draco, and gestured for the barman. Once he'd ordered his drink, he looked back at Harry, who was glowering at him. "What?"

The other Harry did not seem about to protest Draco's Auror remark, or respond to it at all. "Why are you here, Malfoy? Have you even got a reason other than trying to annoy me?"

"Oh, I'm not trying."

The other Harry rolled his eyes. "Yeah, alright, you're succeeding at annoying me. Congrats on that, I guess. Now go away."

"Why would I do that when I was here first?" Draco asked. "Listen, Potter, if you've come back for seconds, you should have just said so."

"You wish I wanted your seconds," said the other Harry, a sentiment that didn't stop him from saying he needed the loo a while later, and certainly didn't stop Draco from waiting a couple minutes, then following after him.

*

The next memory didn't even bother to start in the alley, but with Draco shoving into the stool next to the other Harry and peering very closely into his face.

"What?" the other Harry said, reddening in a way that was a lot more obvious in this memory than it had been in the previous ones.

"I've changed my mind," Draco said, practically glowing with smugness. "You ought to have left it on. I'd forgotten how hideous your face is when it's actually visible."

The other Harry did seem to have shed his beard, just as Draco seemed to have shed his leather clothes the memory before this one. He looked shockingly young now compared to what Harry was used to seeing in the mirror. Probably he looked older than the Harry he remembered being, though it was getting harder and harder to remember just what it had been like to look in the mirror and see himself at twenty...

"I didn't do it for you," the other Harry mumbled, in a way that it was impossible to tell if it were true or not. "It's just, er."

"Very eloquent. And a blatant lie," said Draco.

"It's just," the other Harry went on, "I was, er, visiting my godson, and he saw my beard and he cried about it. So I had to get rid of it. Alright?"

"Even more of a blatant lie. Unless--how many godsons have you got?"

"Er. Just the one."

"Yes, alright. First off, Teddy's not a dog, he's not going to bark at you if you go over to Andromeda's wearing something on your face you didn't have on before. He might bark at you for other reasons, but not for that one. Second, why would he cry about your beard when he's constantly turning on one of his own? Weak, Potter. Incredibly weak."

"Yeah, alright," Harry said. "Even if I did shave it off for you, which by the the way you should thank me for since you keep complaining about how scratchy it is, you changed stuff for me first."

"Oh, I did not."

"Yeah you did, you ditched all the leather after your first time here."

"I didn't ditch it," said Draco, turning pink enough for his skin to possibly count as a lie detector. "It's at the dye cleanings."

Did dry cleaners even take leather stuff? Harry didn't know, and could see the other Harry not knowing either, or maybe just not knowing what to do about a Draco Malfoy who threw Muggle terms out there so confidently and yet also so wrongly.

"Right," said the other Harry. "--Wait, you know Teddy?"

Draco sneered. "Why shouldn't I know him? He is my cousin."

"I know." The other Harry said this slowly enough to suggest he had never quite put those pieces together in that particular order before.

"There's actually--there's a very funny story about that," said Draco hesitantly. "If you'd like to hear it...?"

"Sure."

"Alright. So. A couple years back, my mother Floo calls me and says, 'Put your dress robes on, we're going to see your Aunt Andromeda.' And, since it's eight of a Saturday morning and this is the first I'm hearing of it, I say, 'Who? Also, I'm not going.' So then she says--"

He went on to tell a long, unnecessarily involved story which included everything anyone had said to anyone during what sounded like the very awkward affair of Narcissa Malfoy inviting herself over to her sister's house, more or less using Draco's existence as a battering ram to get in the door, and then managing to say, apparently, all sorts of shit things the moment Andromeda had let her guard down a bit.

"--So then, they come out to the back garden, where Teddy and I are. Oh, Andromeda was livid. Mother wasn't much better, we were absolutely about to get kicked out on our arses and told never to come back. Only Teddy was giggling, and like I told you, he'd turned himself into a miniature version of me. So then Andromeda looks from us to Mother and back again and says, in that Black way, you know, 'Narcissa, you may call on us monthly--with a week's notice, please. Draco may come by any time--you're always welcome, dear.'"

The other Harry was grinning. Harry was, too; he could just picture Andromeda saying it, though definitely with less explosive hand gestures and more, like, dignity. "Guess that explains why Teddy's been blond so much lately."

"Yes, even when I'm not there to see it," Draco said. "My plan worked."

"Your plan to make a little pointy clone of yourself?"

"No, my plan to reunite my mother with the only family she's got left. It went off brilliantly, as I've just explained."

"Thought you said you didn't even want to go?" The other Harry grinned flushedly, having gone through several more drinks during Draco's story.

"Thought you said Teddy was responsible for the tragic loss of your revolting facial hair," Draco shot back. "It really is so very, very sad. For me, since I'm the one who has to look at your even more revolting face."

"Teddy did cry once about my beard," said the other Harry. "Back the first time I grew one. I guess he didn't recognize me in it..."

"But not recently."

"Yeah, no. You know, I've got some really amusing stories too."

"Do you?" Draco sounded as if he doubted this. His sneer seemed to doubt it too.

They traded stories a while longer. First the other Harry did one, and then Draco did another one, and so on. Harry knew all of the other Harry's stories, at least the ones he was telling Draco right now, and found his mind wandering during them. He only knew one or two of Draco's; the rest were all new, and varying degrees of interesting that had him paying more attention.

"That's not true," Draco said, some many stories later. "There's absolutely no--I refuse to believe it."

"It is true, though," said the other Harry.

"Even Granger couldn't brew Polyjuice at twelve," Draco insisted. "Also, I don't even remember that alleged conversation. I think I'd have noticed if Greg and Vince had ever suddenly got drastically stupider and uglier one day. Clearly you're making it up, or delusional. Could it be the beard was the only thing tethering you to reality? And now it's gone, what nonexistent sense you had has been washed away--"

"It happened," said the other Harry. He hadn't had any more to drink in a while, but was still very drink-flushed, his elbow on the bar and his head resting on his hand. "Live with it, Malfoy."

"I'll do no such--"

"Last orders!" called the barman.

"--What's that?" Draco asked in a low voice, glancing around at the other customers, who were all either gathering their things, or heading up to the bar to order one last drink.

"It means they're closing," the other Harry said.

"Oh," said Draco, in a way that suggested he'd have looked crestfallen if he hadn't decided to try to look cool and uncaring instead. The end result was that he looked drunk and disappointed. "Suppose you'll have to come back for fifths next time, then."

"Unless you want to come to mine for this time," suggested the other Harry, and then went very still for a moment before adding, "And, er. If you have to keep count, can you not do it out loud? It's really embarrassing."

Draco either didn't hear the first bit, or acted like he didn't. "Next time," he said. "For fifths," he added, with a sneer, and the memory dissolved in place of the next one.

*

The Stag's End of that day swirled into the Stag's End of some other day. They were in their same spot at the bar, with only their different shirts to prove it wasn't still the same night.

"It's all bullshit, is my point," Draco said, or rather slurred. He seemed drunker than he had in the other memories, or at best similarly drunk but more wound up. "It was all a, fucking--look: there are things that, if one isn't true, then nothing else around it is true, either. You know?"

The other Harry didn't say anything.

"You know?" Draco said again, a little icily.

The other Harry was leaning his head on his hand again, watching Draco talk. He was almost, sort of smiling. "Yeah."

"Good." Draco paused for a minute, seeming to think. His face was very loud about it, and a good deal redder than it had been in the other memories. "So. My point is--look. Are you paying attention?"

"Yeah, go on."

"So what I'm trying to say is, it's all bullshit! Did you know he wasn't even a pure-blood?"

"Yeah, I did."

"No you didn't, you don't even know who I'm talking about. It could be anyone."

"Voldemort, right?"

Draco flinched a little at the name. "I--no. I'm going to need another drink if I have to talk about this."

"You don't have to talk about it," the other Harry said. "Also, you've been cut off."

"No, I haven't."

"Yeah, and my Disillusionment Charm is why we haven't got kicked out."

Draco frowned. "Oh."

"You were saying?" prodded the other Harry, moving his head to lean on his other hand.

"Right," Draco said, leaning toward the other Harry as if imparting a grand or low secret: "It's all bullshit. The Dark Lord was a fucking half-blood, which makes the rest of it--how can you say blood purity even matters, then?"

"It doesn't," said the other Harry quietly.

"I'm not saying it doesn't, I'm saying it can't. It doesn't make sense! It doesn't--it's not--it's all bullshit."

"Yeah."

"Try telling him that, though. He doesn't--he's going to cling to the bullshit until the day he dies. Nevermind that it doesn't make any--to him it was all, like, a miscalculation, or whatever. If we'd come out on top that would have made us right. But it wouldn't have made it any less...whatever. It just would have made us on top. And he still would have been in our house," Draco added, seeming to possibly have switched to a different he. "He still would have been there, and it still would have been..."

"Really bad?" the other Harry suggested, when Draco's frown had gone on for a bit.

"No, just completely awful," Draco said, and then didn't say anything else for a few brooding minutes. Then, finally, he said, in a more subdued way, "Did you actually know the Dark Lord was a half-blood?"

"Yeah. For like, the fourth time."

"Oh. When did you find that out?"

The other Harry seemed to think about it a moment. "Second year, I think?"

"What?!" Draco demanded. "Well, that's bullshit too."

"Sorry," said the other Harry, not looking very sorry.

Draco sighed, and brooded some more, pointily. "What are you staring at me for?" he said, finally. "Have you no manners? Who fucking raised you, anyway?"

The other Harry took his head off his hand. "My aunt and uncle," he said, and then, very coolly: "Going to have a go at my parents now, Malfoy?"

"--Um," Draco said. "I don't--no, I wasn't planning on it."

"Good."

Draco fidgeted around for a few seconds. "Listen, Potter--"

The other Harry seemed to be done wanting to listen to him, though. "You should go home and sleep it off," he said firmly.

"Potter, I don't want to--just listen, alright? You can even stare at me if you want."

"Alright," said the other Harry after a moment, looking at Draco what seemed to be cautiously.

"--Don't stare, I don't like it."

The other Harry sighed. "Right."

"It's just that, um. I shouldn't have--in school," Draco said somewhat proudly, not as if this were the beginning of what he were trying to say, but the very exciting climax of it.

"Er, shouldn't have what?"

Draco seemed to deflate a bit. "Your parents," he said. "I shouldn't have--about them. In school, all those times. I'm sorry, alright?"

Now the other Harry really was staring again, eyes wide behind his crooked glasses. "Yeah?" he said, in a sort of croak.

"Yes, I'm very sorry, you're welcome about it," said Draco snidely. "Can we please not talk about it anymore?"

"Yeah, alright," the other Harry said.

"--You're staring at me again."

"Yeah," said the other Harry. "Look, Malfoy," he went on, sitting up straighter on his stool.

"Yes?"

"Would you really have...if we hadn't run into each other..."

"What?"

"Would you really have tried to pull a Muggle?" the other Harry asked. He swallowed. "The first time you were here? If it hadn't been for me being here too?"

Either oblivious to the significantness of this question, or possibly choosing to ignore it, Draco rolled his eyes. "Oh, come off it. I never wear anything that tight if someone's not going to peel it off me at the end of the night."

"Right," the other Harry said. "Right." He looked around, and then looked straight at Draco in an intense, almost uncomfortable way. "Do you want to have dinner with me? Er, sometime. Maybe tomorrow?"

This question seemed to balloon in the air between them for a long, swelling second before Draco stuck a pin into it and sent it to make farting noises around the room. "Nice one, Potter," he said dismissively, and didn't seem to notice the other Harry slumping a bit. "So, I went over to my parents' house today..."

"Yeah, I kind of guessed," said the other Harry. "What happened?"

What had happened must not have mattered, or perhaps had been way too repetitive to include, because the memory chose that moment to be done with.

*

The inside of the Stag's end dissolved, swirling into...not the inside of it.

It wasn't as dark in the alley as it had been the other times, probably because of the snow underfoot, reflecting what light there was. Draco, when he became more visible, had on a coat and some gloves. The snow was still coming down.

"Malfoy," called out someone, who turned out to be the other Harry, slipping out from a different alleyway.

Draco frowned at him. "What are you doing out here?"

"You can't go in," said the other Harry.

"...Why not?"

"Er, well." The other Harry's face was red with something that could have been the cold, or could have been something else. "We've been, er, banned from the pub."

"What are you talking about?"

"The barman kicked me out. For all the, you know." A shrug that seemed to indicate shagging in the bathroom (possibly unquietly?) most times they were there.

"Oh," said Draco. He frowned. "We'll just have to--he's a Muggle, though. Let's just Confund him and have done."

"We can't Confund him," said the other Harry firmly. "We haven't cause."

It must have been cold, there in the dark and snow and damp; Draco's expression was abruptly colder than any of it. "Suppose I'll be going now, then."

"Oh, yeah?" The other Harry's expression, formerly a friendly look over a sort of bashfulness, all of which was somewhat mortifying to see on one's own face, changed to something more like alarm.

"Not much point in standing about in the street, is there?"

"Got it," said the other Harry, looking as if this sentiment were somehow a relief. "They don't serve drinks out here, do they?"

"Exactly my point."

"Though, if you think about it...there are other pubs. Other Muggle ones, even. We could move on to one of those."

"I suppose," said Draco, seeming to thaw, so that the other Harry's expression went from relief to an all-out smile.

"Or, if you like..."

"What?"

"We could try it at mine, instead. We're not likely to have the barman kick us out from there, are we? And I've got plenty of stuff to drink. You wouldn't even have to pay."

"You must be joking. Don't you know how long it takes, changing Galleons to Muggle money? The exchange rate is absurd," Draco complained, but it couldn't have been clearer that he was joking. Or, well, mostly, judging by how long he went on about how much he'd have lost if he changed all his pounds back into Galleons tomorrow.

Harry didn't realize what this was until the moment the streetlamp next to Draco came on, casting the both of them in that yellowing light.

You were standing there, and I was standing there...you wouldn't understand.

As Draco and the other Harry began bickering over whether they ought to go to Harry's probably-disgusting flat after all, or whether Draco's would in fact be better, Harry thought he actually did.

*

Over the next few memories, the better part of a year seemed to pass, judging by the trees outside the windows of the sleek, impersonal flat that must have been Draco's. The leaves on them grew greenly in the spring and on through the summer and went a glowing goldish in the fall, always a backdrop to more long, meandering conversations (which sometimes turned into passionate necking sessions on the couch, hastily dissolved away from each time).

Their branches outside Draco's bedroom were bare again for this memory, the sky beyond them drab and gray. They had been lying together, clothes discarded in a not at all straight line between the door and the bed; now the other Harry got up again and started collecting his, tossing Draco's onto the bed when he found them.

"Er, you know," started the other Harry nervously, "I've been thinking..."

"I do not know that. In fact, I sincerely doubt it," Draco said, and got a face-full of someone's nasty sock in return.

"Git," said the other Harry fondly. "No, really. The holidays are coming up, and I just thought..." He pulled his pants and trousers back on, then started again: "Do you think you'd want to, maybe..."

"Yes?" asked Draco, a little coolly.

"Er. GototheBurrowwithmeforChristmas?"

He asked this so quickly Draco couldn't possibly have caught it; Harry couldn't have, either, if he hadn't known it was the sort of thing he really would ask, if they'd been doing this for a while. If he hadn't known where they did go for Christmases, years and years on.

"Come again?" Draco said finally, blinking at him.

The other Harry repeated himself, and more slowly this time.

"What, pray tell, is the Burrow?" Draco asked--but the confusion that had been in his voice before wasn't there now. It had been replaced by a coldness that had obliterated the coolness from before.

The other Harry didn't seem to have noticed. "It's the Weasleys' house," he said, with a look on his face that suggested he was committing fully to this line of inquiry, nevermind what Draco or even the Weasleys thought about it. "I go there for Christmas every year. I haven't had anyone to bring with me up til now."

"So you thought I might like to go with you," Draco said.

"Er, don't you?" the other Harry asked, and it was hard to say, even for Harry it was hard to say whether his other self was asking because he thought Draco did, or because it was suddenly and humiliatingly obvious that Draco didn't.

"Going to Christmas with a lot of Weasleys," said Draco. His face had by now twisted into something unmistakably nasty. "Why shouldn't I want to do that, just because I'm shagging you?"

"Well, nevermind then, if you're going to be like that."

But there was no shoving this escaped potion back into its vial. "I hope you're not under any mistaken impressions about what all this has meant," said Draco, in a cool, airy sort of way, gesturing between them as if there were any question that 'this' referred to all the shagging and sleepovers and long revealing conversations into the night and...whatever else hadn't made it into these memories. "I ought to have clarified it with you before now, I suppose. I can see how it might have become confusing to you, given you haven't exactly grown up having guidance to these sorts of things. You see, Potter, there's serious, and then there's us. Having a bit of fun. While slumming, in my case. You can understand why I wouldn't be interested in doing any more of it for Christmas."

"I'm starting to get it, yeah," said the other Harry tightly.

"It would be amusing enough, I suppose, but imagine if word ever got out! Do you have any idea what it would do to my reputation?"

This was more or less the other Harry's cue to point out that Draco's reputation could not have had anywhere to go but up in normal wizarding circles--or even in the circles Draco had come from, considering where he'd been trawling for a lay when he'd first come across Harry at the Stag's End. But instead he had gone redder than embarrassed, redder even than falling-down drunk. There was a terrible look in his eyes. Harry couldn't tell himself if it meant he was more likely to let out a sob, or take his wand out and hex Draco into the ground.

"Yeah. Got it," said the other Harry, even more tightly now. His face twisted, and he said, in a rush, "You know what, Malfoy, I really did like you. I even thought maybe I was falling for you. Thanks for helping clear that up, it won't be a problem anymore." If crying was never exactly pleasant, seeing oneself on what appeared to be the verge of furious tears was less so by an order of magnitude. "Have a nice fucking life, I guess."

Then, with a loud crack, he Disapparated.

Draco, now alone, seemed to slump. His face twisted up, sending echoes of his older self sparking. For a minute, he seemed unable to look away from the spot where the other Harry had been. Then he got dressed, kind of jerkily and giving the distinct impression he was in danger of falling over. Then, in a flurry of movement, he paced over to the window and looked out. By now he was breathing so loudly Harry might have thought he was crying, except for the fact that, once he'd followed Draco over to the window, he could see his face, and that it was dry.

"Shit," Draco said. He ran his hand through his hair, and again, not seeming to notice he was making it stick up. "Shit. Oh, God. Oh, shit. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Fuck."

*

The scene changed, swirling into somewhere else. It might have been a little while later, or might have been many hours on; the lighting in the hall to Harry's apartment had always been somewhat dodgy, rarely showing much difference between dawn or midday or dusk. Regardless of when it was, it must have been the same day, for Draco was wearing the robe he'd pulled off the floor and hadn't bothered to De-Wrinkle it. He was pacing back and forth in front of Harry's door. He looked a mess, with eyes that were red and wild, and hair that was sticking up even more than it had been. Occasionally, he stopped pacing long enough to run his hand through his hair again and mutter, "Fuck."

He approached the door three times, only to turn back and start pacing again. Finally, on the fourth time, he took in a loud breath and gave it two hard raps.

From inside the flat there came a sudden silence of the sort that suggested there had been some kind of sound happening before, even if it hadn't been loud enough to be noted consciously. This was followed by some rustling, and several thuds, and a muffled curse. 

Finally, the door opened. On the other side of it stood the other Harry. He looked like hell. Worse, even, than Harry remembered having looked after he'd been out all night celebrating having passed his first set of Auror exams. His hair was in twice as much disarray as usual, his eyes even redder than Draco's; and he must have been drinking from the moment he'd left Draco's flat, for although the smells that came with memories tended not to be nearly as vivid as the real thing, he still managed to smell as if he'd fallen asleep in a vat of Firewhisky, walked around like that for three days, and attempted to fix it by showering in yet more Firewhisky, before falling asleep in the same robe he'd been wearing through all the rest of it.

He stared at Draco rather stupidly for a moment, breathing heavily too. Then he straightened up and said, contemptuously, "Just dying to get your face hexed off, are you?"

"No, I--ugh. What is that sme--nevermind, it doesn't matter, forget I said anything," Draco said, somehow managing to look much stupider than did the other Harry in this moment, as well as much more panicked; it seemed almost as if, in among all the pacing and swearing (and almost certainly crying, though he'd skipped over the absolute proof of that bit), he hadn't managed to work out what he'd say once he had the other Harry in front of him again.

"What?" The other Harry had something in his hand. It might have been a bottle or a wand, there in the shadows, but a flick of his hand proved it was in fact his wand. Whether he was sober enough to use it was another question. One that was more or less answered when he flicked it again, wordlessly casting what looked like a Sober-Me-Up, and immediately seemed a lot less flushed. "What are you doing here?"

"I--"

"You know what, no, I don't actually care. Leave."

"Potter, I'm--"

"GET OUT! I DON'T WANT YOU HERE!"

So saying, the other Harry raised his wand and pointed it at Draco's face.

"Harry," said Draco, and seemed to stumble over it, as if he'd never called him by his first name before. Probably he hadn't, outside of things like telling everyone Harry Potter was giving out autographs. "Wait, I--" Red sparks sputtered out the end of the other Harry's wand. "Harry, please, can't you just--"

"No, I can't!" the other Harry said loudly; but as firm as he sounded, saying it, there was a question of sorts on his face, a wrinkling of his brow. "Are you going to fuck off, or what?"

"Look, I'm--I just, I freaked out, and--I'm sorry, alright?"

"For what, all the shagging? Or was it just the sleepovers you didn't fancy?" asked Harry coolly. "Don't worry, I already know how you feel about anyone finding out about us."

"For what I said," said Draco. "I shouldn't have--are you really certain you want to have this conversation out here?"

"What, isn't my hallway good enough for you, either?" But the other Harry must have been doing the same calculus Harry himself was; must have been recalling that even though reporters didn't bother him at his flat very often, it still happened sometimes. Not everyone had minded being fined by the Ministry if they did something that made his Muggle neighbors have to be Obliviated; not everyone even minded being hexed for their troubles. Not if it meant they got to publish an article about how "the Chosen One" never seemed to get more than a slap on the wrist for having cursed some innocent hardworking witch or wizard. "Come on, then."

Inside, the smell of Firewhisky was even stronger. On the wall by the door was a large stain; on the carpet below it were the shattered remains of a tall glass bottle, which must have been hurled there at some point.

"Er," said the other Harry, when it became apparent that Draco was looking at this too. He waved his wand at the mess, and the bottle knitted back together. The stain disappeared with the next flick of his wand, and with it went most of the smell. "What were you on about, Malfoy? I didn't catch it the first time."

Fury flashed across Draco's face, but he'd no more than opened his mouth when he shut it again. He closed his eyes, seeming to gather breath. He opened them again, and said, through clenched teeth, "I'm sorry. About what I said."

"Yeah?"

"I, just--I panicked, alright? That's all it was."

The other Harry opened his mouth, then closed it again. Maybe he'd thought of a sarcastic remark, then decided better of it, or realized he didn't have one after all. It was very hard to say, watching from the outside. "Yeah?" he managed again.

"Yes. I--did you mean it, what you said?"

"What'd I say?"

"That you were--um," Draco started, and then seemed to reach into himself to pull out a smirk. "Don't you remember saying you were mad about me?"

"I didn't say I was mad about you--" began the other Harry hotly, then seemed to think better of it, and went on in a wild-eyed rush: "Er, but yeah, I meant it. About--really liking you. And about--I mean, I'm getting there. I think. Or, I was. I mean, I am. I invited you to the Burrow for Christmas, didn't I?"

"Oh," said Draco, as if this connection had somehow managed to escape him, up til now. "I--this whole time. I thought you might be--that you couldn't be..."

"What?"

"I mean--serious? I thought you had to be--you think I don't know you're better than I am? No, I don't mean--it's not because you're the wanker who lived, or whatever. More because you--you fought him, you stood up to him, and I...you think I don't know? I thought, this whole time, you were just..."

"Slumming?" asked the other Harry dryly. But there was an air of understanding beneath it.

"Or, or--toying with me. Winding me up. Making me--making me care, so you could..."

"Take you to Christmas with me after telling everyone we're going out?" the other Harry offered. He wasn't quite relaxed yet, but had moved into a less stiff stance; he wasn't quite smiling, but a pleased sort of flush had moved onto his face, and his whole expression, while again not a smile, had gone odd and crooked.

"Toy with me," Draco said again. "Embarrass me when I got there, or, or--stand me up, I don't know. Because you couldn't be serious, could you?"

"Couldn't I?" said the other Harry. They looked at each other for a moment that didn't seem to have room for anyone else. "Were you --you know? Toying with me?"

Draco jerked with a sort of shock he wasn't anywhere near a good enough actor to fake, at any age or year of his life. "No!" A sort of thoughtfulness came over his face. I mean--I might have? Back at school. It would have been hilar--um. I mean, yes, I might have, back then. If I'd known I could."

"You couldn't've." Back then he never would have let himself be hurt by Draco. Harry could remember being that person, the one who only wanted to be left alone by him. "That was then, though," the other Harry added.

"Yes. That was then." Draco took another loud breath, seemed to steel himself. "So. Sorry again. We can start over, if you'd like. Um, I mean: Please, can we start over?"

"Start over how?" the other Harry asked, and now he was smiling after all, even almost grinning, the promise of the flush and crookedness having been borne out.

"I'm not going to say I'm completely mad for you. If you're waiting for me to say it back, you'll be waiting a long time."

"Oh, yeah?"

"I do--like you, though. I mean, I like you, too," Draco went on, rather stiffly, and very pinkly indeed. "You said it to me first!" he added quickly, as if this would otherwise have been in doubt.

"Alright," said the other Harry. "We can start over. Want to go to Christmas at the Burrow with me?"

"God no," said Draco at once, then pinkened even more. "Um. I mean, just. Do you really expect me--all those Weas--" He took in another breath and let it out very loudly. Then, more stiffly than he'd been in any memory yet: "I'd be delighted to accompany you to Christmas. With...those people. I suppose."

"Right, then," said the other Harry cheerfully.

*

The next memory swirled into a more familiar place, on what it was not hard to guess was Christmas day. This was partly because of the Weasley Christmas trees, and partly because of the way everyone kept saying, "Merry Christmas, Harry! And, er, Malfoy, too," but mostly just because it was more or less what Harry had expected to come next.

"This was a bad idea," Draco said, after the third person had given the other Harry a very weird look. "I shouldn't have come."

"It's going off fine," said the other Harry. "No one's hexed anyone yet. Let's go say hi to Molly."

"--Who?"

"You know, Ron's mum," the other Harry said. "Do you want to put your jumper on first?"

He sounded like he thought Draco should want to put his jumper on first. Draco made a face. "It met with an unfortunate accident. As I already told you."

"Alright," said the other Harry doubtfully.

"That's our story. Make sure you stick with it."

A few minutes later, they found Mrs. Weasley in the living. She left a round-looking Angelina and came to give the other Harry a large, warm-looking hug.

"It's so good to see you, Harry, it's been too long," she said, sounding as if she meant it. "And Draco, too, of course," she said once the hug had ended, sounding as if she didn't mean it at all. "We've all been so worried about Harry being alone; it's good to have something new to be worried about, I suppose. But where's your jumper, dear? Didn't you like it?"

"Oh, er," said Draco, pink and splotchy in the headlights of whatever this was. (Harry knew exactly what it was.) "I, um, it met with an--I'm sorry, I did mean to wear it, I completely forgot in all the, um, excitement. I'll be right back!" Then, very quickly, and making it hard to say whether he was being insincere or was panicked again or somewhere between the two, he added, "Oh, and this is for you, thank you for hosting these festivities in your lovely home!"

'This' appeared to mean the bottle of wine he'd been carrying around, which had a singing ribbon around the neck. He shoved it toward Molly. As she took it, it began letting out a nasally rendition of "I Cast a Spell on Father Christmas."

"Er, guess he's just a little..." said the other Harry as Draco moved away.

What he said next could not be known, since by then Draco had shoved into the bathroom and closed the door. Now he sifted  through his pockets--he'd worn robes for this occasion, even though most everyone else was in Muggle clothes--until he pulled out a knitted jumper. It was not very like the deep red jumper the other Harry was wearing, or the other jumpers worn by everyone else in the house, with their initials and maybe an extra something embroidered on the front; this was made out of a number of colors, not in a nice way so much as a way that suggested it had been made out of scraps of everything else. It was also very small, not only tight but short, as if Mrs. Weasely had either run out of materials before being able to finish it, or simply hadn't cared to. It also managed, somehow, to make Draco look even paler and pointier than he was, and honestly a little sickly too.

Draco came out of the bathroom again, and back up to the other Harry and Molly. The ribbon on the bottle, had just finished its first song, and appeared to be starting on "God Rest Ye, Merry Hippogriffs."

"I knew I had it on me," Draco announced, all the embarrassment from looking at himself in the mirror in the bathroom having gone in favor of being very tall and pointy indeed. "Well? Will I do?"

"You look great," said the other Harry, with an enthusiasm that had to have been faked, but was firm enough to make it seem as if it weren't.

"Oh, dear," said Molly. "That really doesn't suit you at all, does it? Such a shame. Well! I really must be heading back to Angelina. So good of you to come with our Harry."

Once she had left, Draco dragged the other Harry into the nearest isolated corner. This ended up being toward the back end of the garden, by the shed.

"This is going off terribly," Draco hissed. "How long do we have to stay?"

"It's not that bad," said the other Harry.

"It's not that bad? It's not that bad?! Harry, that was a message. A really obvious one!"

"--What are you talking about?" the other Harry asked, though this question didn't seem quite on the up and up, judging by the way he was directing it to the shed behind Draco instead of to him.

"That whole thing just now, Harry," Draco said, using his name naturally enough that it seemed he must have been calling the other Harry by his name a lot over the last few days or weeks, whatever it had been. "I'm not welcome here, and she wants me to know it. But I'm your guest, so she can't come out and say so..."

"Don't worry, she's like that sometimes," said the other Harry. "When Bill and Fleur got engaged--"

"Do I look like Fleur Delacour?" Draco said, hissing properly now. "If I'm going to receive the same treatment as a fucking Triwizard champion to start with, I'd like to know exactly how you expect that treatment to ever change! Since what I am, you may have heard, is a former--"

The other Harry seemed to be sort of smiling now, and maybe trying to hide it. If he was, it was very possible that hiding it had never worked the way Harry had always thought it had, because all it did was make his face look a bit crooked.

"It's not funny! In fact it's very serious!"

"Yeah, alright. What did you want me to do about it?" asked the other Harry.

"Not humor me, for a start. Or--laugh at me secretly, I knew you were meant to-- you wanted me to come, I didn't--" Draco stammered to a halt, then started up again: "I'm your guest here. I'd hoped you'd be on my side if anything happened."

Draco started this out being hissier yet, but ended it up looking and sounding a bit miserable. The other Harry's not-very-well-hidden smile faded away. "You're really upset."

"Yes! I really fucking am!" Draco said, hissiness seeming to make something of a comeback now.

"Right," said the other Harry thoughtfully, looking over Draco's shoulder at where the shed was. Something in his face seemed to be changing. "Alright. I'll sort it," he added firmly.

"You--!" Draco started. "Wait, what?"

The other Harry had turned back toward the house. Now he paused and looked back. "I'll sort it," he said again, very firmly indeed.

"Erm. Do you actually mean you're going to make a scene? You really don't have to." Draco looked embarrassed again, but also like he was massively thrilled and doing very poorly at hiding it.

"It won't be a scene," said the other Harry. "You probably shouldn't, er, come along, though."

Draco looked somewhat disappointed at this first bit, but seemed happy enough about the second, possibly because not-scenes were not, in the end, as exciting as their opposite. "Alright," he said.

The other Harry went back into the house. Draco hung around the back garden for what must have been ten or fifteen minutes, gravitating a little closer to where there were people, but not quite making it to talking to anyone, at least until--

"Draco, Draco!" shouted a young boy with pink hair, who then slammed into him hard enough to send him back a couple steps.

Draco looked down. "Who's this?" he said in a very exaggerated sort of way. "Why is there a strange boy hugging me? I never!"

"Drac-o! It's me, Teddy!" said the small child, who was apparently Teddy at some undetermined age (because Harry was bad at guessing kids' ages between, like, pre-walking and talking and Hogwarts age, and also wasn't sure what year it was to do maths about it).

"Delighted to meet you, it's-me-Teddy," said Draco. "Unhand me now, I've got to go find my cousin so I can give him his Christmas gift. Between you and me, I think he's really going to love it."

"I am your cousin!" Teddy said, not unhanding Draco at all.

"Well then, I-am-your-cousin, you shouldn't have just told me your name was I-am-Teddy, should you? Aliases aren't intended to be divulged so easily. Very bad form, honestly."

"You know who I am, you're just making fun," Teddy accused him laughingly.

"Well, you-know-who-I-am-you're-just-making-fun, here we are again, running into the same alias problem I just--" In the middle of this, Teddy's hair had started turning light blond, and his features, chin in particular, had got very pointy indeed. "--oh, you're Teddy. You could have said so. It'd have saved everyone time and confusion."

"Yeah, right," said Teddy. "What about my present?"

"Oh, I'm afraid I can't divulge that, now I know your identity," said Draco very gravely.

This had the sense of something that was meant to go on for a while, but that was when the other Harry showed up again.

"Hey, Teddy," he said, grinning.

"Harry!" Teddy said, and, forgetting his wayward present for the moment, slammed into the other Harry too.

"Nice look today," the other Harry said to Teddy, with a wink at Draco. "Anyone I know?"

"Cousin Draco likes it when I look like him. He uses blackmail, too," said Teddy.

"That's a dirty lie," said Draco, puffing up with a cool fake outrage. "I can't believe I'm being framed. By my own cousin! At Christmas!"

"Yeah, too bad," said the other Harry, grinning. He bent down to whisper something into Teddy's ear. Teddy laughed, and then his face started to change again, getting even pointier around the nose, and a little hairy too...

"Haha, very funny," said Draco, as everyone in the back garden shouted with laughter--because obviously everyone had been watching this, and although Teddy didn't look one-hundred percent ferret-y, he was definitely close enough to give the basic idea. "I also can't believe I'm being ganged up on. By my cousin and my boyfriend! At Christmas!"

Really he looked more or less thrilled to have been ganged up on at Christmas. A minute later, Teddy found he couldn't actually hold the ferret-y look any longer, and went back to blond pointiness. A while after that, Andromeda called for him to come inside and say hello to someone, and he ran off again.

"Yeah, so. It's, er, all been sorted," the other Harry said, watching Teddy dash back into the house.

"Oh," said Draco. "Alright. Good. Thank you." He glanced around, then said, in a lower voice, "I have a question. A rather pressing one."

"Yeah?"

"How does one 'win' Christmas? And why would one want to? And how can I do it, if it's something I did decide I wanted to do?"

"Oh," said the other Harry, grinning. "Winning Christmas is pretty much just shorthand for getting all the attention?" The look on Draco's face suggested he was liking this so far. "As far as we can tell, you pretty much have to have a baby, though."

The look on Draco's face suggested he wasn't liking this anymore, and very theatrically too. "Pass," he said. "Very, very much pass."

The other Harry was still laughing when a floating mistletoe decided to hover above them.

Draco turned pink, muttered, "What happens if we don't?"

"Depends if it's one of George's or not," the other Harry said.

"Might be worth risking," Draco suggested, glancing around like he thought people were watching (which they definitely, one-hundred percent all were).

"Not to me," said the other Harry and didn't seem to hesitate a moment before kissing Draco very enthusiastically, and in front of everyone.

Draco, even more pink-faced once they pulled apart, didn't seem to have minded at all.

*

"Even you can't sort this," Draco said unhappily. He was sat on a gleaming, impersonal couch in a gleaming, impersonal living room, holding a copy of the Daily Prophet folded in such a way that Harry couldn't make out the headline. The headline wasn't really needed, though, since there was also a picture of the two of them. They were in front of a door which might have led to Draco's gleaming, impersonal flat, or might have led to somewhere else. They were kissing, enthusiastically and identifiably.

"It's not a big deal," said the other Harry, who had just come in the door. He'd pulled off his gloves and stuffed them into his coat pocket; now he took off his coat, which seemed to be the same one he was wearing in the photograph, and lay it across the back of the couch as he came over to look at the paper.

"It isn't for some people," said Draco. "People who don't get called an ex-Death Eater fourteen times in one article, for instance. Just in case anyone had forgotten. Which of course no one has. Were you born in a farm? Hang your coat up properly."

"It's 'were you raised in a barn,' I think," the other Harry said. "And no, your flat could use some more character. Or, you know, any at all. Can I see the paper?"

Draco let him have it. The other Harry sat on the couch next to him and read through the article, his lips moving a little. Harry thought about moving behind the couch so he could try to read it too, but it seemed like it would be an awkward angle. Anyway, he didn't need to read it to have an idea about the kinds of things that were in there. Pretty much the same kind of things that were in the present day, only worse since it was new news instead of the old and well-trodden kind.

Once he'd finished reading, the other Harry seemed to skim over everything again, before saying, "It's not that bad."

"Maybe not now," Draco said. "They're only getting started. It might get a lot worse, and then maybe..."

He trailed off. The other Harry didn't say anything for a few seconds either, until he somehow must have got wind of the way Draco's face looked (awful, worried) and looked over at him and frowned. "And then maybe what?"

"Maybe it gets to be too much," Draco said dully. "For you to still want to--you know, sometimes it's like you've forgotten everything I--"

"Hard to forget you're Draco Malfoy," said the other Harry dryly. "It's the hair, I think. And you're really pointy. Especially when you're all, you know, pissed off."

"The papers are, just, so persistent when it comes to you. They could wear you down. You don't know!"

"They're not going to wear me down," the other Harry said reasonably. "This isn't that bad. No really, it isn't. It's just the way my life is. First it was my cupboard and then it was Voldemort and now it's this. It's not great, or anything, but it's not as bad as the stuff from before. I also don't care what the papers have to say about you!" he added very quickly and firmly, as if this had ever managed to be in doubt.

"Well, thank you," said Draco, not looking very convinced. "Also, cupboard?"

The other Harry went very still. "Er. I'll tell you about it later."

"Wonderful. I can't wait for your harrowing tale of household storage units. Can I assume you've also run afoul of kitchen cabinets, wardrobes, that sort of thing? I already knew you have a hateful history with bookshelves, considering how you pile books all over your coffee table. Right in front of the poor things, too."

"Yeah, yeah," the other Harry said, laughing a little wildly. "I'll tell you about it later," he said, more firmly this time.

"Alright," said Draco.

The other Harry skimmed back through the article again. By the time he finished, he was frowning. Something else in his face was changing too, not too much differently than it had done at Christmas.

Obviously having spotted this, Draco said, "It's not as though you can do anything about it. No matter how much you glare at it."

"It's just," the other Harry said. "They didn't have to call you an ex-Death Eater so much, did they? They could have written the whole thing without mentioning it."

"And sell less papers too. It's not exactly defamation if it's true, anyway..."

"Right," said the other Harry, and got up and headed toward the fireplace, which was gleaming and impersonal too. "I'll be back."

"Where are you--you can't--"

Draco was on his feet but had got no further by the time the other Harry took up a handful of glittering dust. He tossed it into the flames and said, "The Daily Prophet" and was gone.

*

"Excellent work," said Draco on what was mostly likely the very next day, sat across from the other Harry in his gleaming, impersonal dining room, where there was a mostly-eaten breakfast spread laid out. "If I've ever got to perform some particularly delicate magic, I'll be sure to send you in to cast a Bombarda about it."

He brandished the paper at the other Harry. The front photograph this time was of Harry by himself, yelling about something and clearly pissed off about it.

The other Harry was chewing his food. Once he'd swallowed, he said, "I bet they only called you an ex-Death Eater once or twice this time, though."

"Three times," Draco said. "All in relation to how associating with me is making the Chosen One a bit unhinged."

"Just a bit? Pretty sure everyone thinks I completely am," said the other Harry. "Anyway, you love it."

"That everyone thinks you're unhinged? Absolutely."

"That I went down there. That I stood up for you," said the other Harry.

Draco, who had indeed looked very pleased indeed for this entire conversation, now turned pink. "I might."

*

The inside of Draco's flat swirled into the outside of Confiend Street. It was sometime in summer judging by how green everything was, the kind of bright, sunny day that always came as a surprise in London. However, nothing about Draco's expression as they went down the walkway--the other Harry strolling, Draco all but stomping--suggested this weather was in any way welcome, or thematically appropriate.

When they were a few houses away, Draco stopped on the pavement. Not looking at the other Harry, but rather straight ahead, he said, "What did they say to you?"

"Er, nothing" said the other Harry, looking rather much as if it had been er, something.

"They said something when I was out of the room. I know they did. What was it?"

"Don't worry about it," the other Harry said. "It was nothing. Anyway, I don't want you to have a row with them."

"Fuck. They tried to buy you off, didn't they?" The other Harry didn't say anything. Draco swore and turned back around as if he meant to stomp all the way back to Number 5.

The other Harry caught him by the elbow. "Draco," he said. "It's alright."

"It is not, they have no right to--"

"Yeah, they don't. But they're just worried about you, I think," said the other Harry, in a sort of wistful, twisting way. "They don't get it yet. They will later, I bet. But I don't think it'd help it along for you to have a row with them."

"Really," said Draco somewhat flatly.

"Unless you really, er, want to. Or it would make you feel better, or something. I bet it wouldn't, though."

"I," Draco said. "Not really, no." He looked incredibly miserable about the idea of not wanting to yell at his parents. "Things with them are, just --you saw them."

"Yeah."

"It's just, I," Draco said uncertainly. "You're choosing me, all the time. I can do it too."

"Oh, yeah?" The other Harry grinned.

"Yes," said Draco in a cool steadfast drawl.

*

From Confiend Street to a place that gleamed nearly as much as Draco's flat--only this was a different sort of gleaming, which seemed empty and full all at once. In fact most of it seemed to come off the wooden floors, which, having been probably polished within an inch of their lives, had no furniture or fluffy rugs to break things up.

"You love it, don't you," said Draco, coming to stand next to Harry in what would be their living room. There was no curtain on the front window, which made it that much easier to look out on what would be the front garden. Harry hadn't realized, before, that they'd taken much care with it, but they must have done, trimming it back a little at a time or else all at once, for the forest no longer came all the way up to the front door. "This is the one."

"I think it could be, yeah," said the other Harry. "There's only one thing I don't like about it."

"No there isn't," said Draco vaguely. He was wearing a thick blue jumper with a D on the front, lumpy in all the familiar places. A Hungarian Horntail was wrapped around the D; it opened one yellow eye lazily, then closed it again and yawned smokily. "Admit it, it's completely perfect for you."

"Let's look around again," the other Harry said.

Apparently what this meant was 'let's go outside,' because that was what they did. Through the kitchen and the sunroom and out to the back garden. There was no Quidditch field there, not yet, just a largish meadow-y area, covered with a light layer of snow.

"You could do something fun with this space," Draco said, when they had trekked out to the middle of the meadow, snow crunching under their boots. His words were misty in the air, the sky above overcast and threatening more winter. "It's about the right size for your own Quidditch field--and no reason you shouldn't have one, if you're in the middle of a few hundred acres. Still wouldn't want to fly too far above the tops of the trees, but you could absolutely get away with skimming them, this far from the road."

"It'd be great for flying," agreed the other Harry. "And, you know, privacy and stuff too."

"Yes."

They went around the house, and then in through the front door, each casting a quick spell to dry off their shoes. The other Harry looked up from his and went very still for a moment. Then he went over to the wall beneath the stairs. He touched the tips of his fingers to it, sort of gingerly, with an expression on his face Harry had no fucking idea what it meant.

"Alright, Harry?" Draco asked, standing there watching him too, and in his case the expression on his face seemed to be a burgeoning alarm.

"No, I am," the other Harry said. "I, just--you were right, there isn't anything about this house I don't like."

"Told you so," said Draco, the alarm turning into something pleased and a bit smug, but also careful, somehow. "You should try listening to me once in a while, you'll end up a lot happier."

The other Harry murmured something that might have been assent. A minute later, over in the drawing room, which was just as gleaming and nearly as empty as the living room, he said, "So what do you think of it?"

"Does it matter?"

"It matters a lot," said the other Harry. As he looked at Draco, there seemed to be something in his face that was less a change than it was a deepening of something.

"Does it?" Draco straightened up in a way suggesting he, too, had noticed the not-change. "Why?"

"Well. Er. I didn't want to buy a place just because I hate my flat, you know?"

"You should, your flat is awful," Draco said. "Even that first place we saw would have been better than where you are now." They both seemed to shudder, a shared recollection of a flat or house Harry had no recollection of. "Or maybe not! Don't buy that one. But you do need to move. You've needed to for years."

"I honestly don't mind it. I mean, I don't that much," said the other Harry. He ran his hand through his hair. "It was fine when I was living by myself, you know? But this is a lot better than both of ours, isn't it? I mean, your flat is a bit shit too, just in, you know, an opposite way..."

Now it was Draco who went still. "I don't, um," he said, not even firing up at the stuff about his flat. "Are you trying to ask me--I don't know what to say."

"You can say whatever you're thinking. As long as it's not 'nice one, Potter.'" The other Harry cleared his throat a bit, stuck his hands in his pockets, glanced around at everything in the room that wasn't Draco--which mostly meant walls, and the fireplace, and the little bowl of Floo powder sat on the mantle.

"It's not that. I, just. What are you--Harry. I don't want to assume..."

"Oh," said the other Harry. "Oh! Er. I sort of thought you might like to move in here too. Er, and live with me? If you want to." When Draco didn't immediately come out with a list of the reasons why a Malfoy was way too good to live with the likes of him, he added, "When's the last time I even spent the night at mine? I'm always at yours anyway. This way I wouldn't have to go back to mine to get things..."

"Well, if it would be more convenient for you," Draco said dryly.

"I can't buy a house and never spend the night in it," the other Harry added hopefully. "Wouldn't be right."

Draco looked around the room again, with a much more proprietary expression than before. "If I'd known that was what we were doing, we'd have looked at different places."

"We can look at different places," the other Harry said quickly. "Then we can come back to this one if we don't like anything else better."

"I do like it," Draco said. "It's not that I don't."

"Yeah, me too. But there's nothing to say we can't look a little more. And if this one sells in the meantime, it wasn't meant for us," said the other Harry, with a stubborn set to his jaw that suggested he'd throw away a lot more than the perfect house to keep Draco around.

"Don't be ridiculous, we'll just tell the agent to have it held for you. For us. Until we decide."

"They'd do that?"

"I mean, we might have to consider a bribe, if the owner is in a hurry to sell. I doubt that will be necessary, you expect to take a while selling a property like this. It's not the house so much as it is all the land that's coming with it..."

"--Right," the other Harry said. "So, we'll look some more, then. And then maybe come back."

"Alright."

They headed toward the fireplace, where the other Harry hesitated. "Did you want to put the cupboard back under the stairs?" he asked, very neutrally and not giving off an indication over whether he thought Draco should want to or not.

"Fuck, no," said Draco, with a dismissive handwave. "I'll pay the fine if it comes to that. Go on."

"Alright," said the other Harry. He threw a handful of Floo powder into the fireplace and stepped into the flames and said, "Familiar Realty."

When he had gone, Draco stayed standing in front of the fireplace. He turned all the way around very slowly, seeming to take in every aspect of the room. By the time he turned back to the fireplace, he was smiling more widely than Harry had ever seen him.

"Yes," he said, and reached for the Floo powder too.

*

The next few memories were very nice ones. They bought the house on Hummingbird Lane, and had a closing of which the chief point seemed to be Draco being clever and knowing things about business, while Harry went through signing and/or initialing an incredibly tall stack of paperwork. 

Afterward, they went to the house and set about casting various spells of the sort you only really can when it's your house; this memory came to an abrupt halt when, apparently only halfway finished with everything they had to do, they started making out against the front door (Harry suspected there was a lot more to this memory, but it dissolved around the time Draco's hands got up the other Harry's shirt). They moved in in a series of hectic, high energy memories that ended with Draco and the other Harry frantically making out against the kitchen counter, heedless of the seeming thousands of boxes waiting to be opened and sorted through. They had a housewarming, which ended with them snogging frantically on the stairs once everyone had left. (At this point, Harry began to suspect they were set on christening every surface in the house.)

It was all very nice, really. Harry wished, in an aching sort of way he was pushing down for the moment, that he could have been there for it.

And time, or what semblance there was of it in these memories, seemed to speed up even more.

*

It was early in the morning of this memory, judging by the angle of the light in through the window, a grayness that lightened as the minutes went by. Draco had been awake for a while by the time the other Harry began to stir. He was sitting up in bed, scribbling madly upon a piece of parchment. Every so often, he'd stop scribbling in order to stare down at the other Harry with a soft, thoughtful sort of expression.

Eventually, the other Harry stopped rolling around and sat up too, yawning and rubbing at his eyes.

"Good morning." Draco said, still scribbling away, with only a sideways sort of look at Harry.

"Mmm, morning," the other Harry mumbled.

Now Draco did look at him, with an even softer expression. "Have you ever thought about getting married?"

"Er," said the other Harry, reaching for his glasses from off the bedside table. "Say what?"

"Getting married. You, and me. Have you thought about it?"

"It's, er," the other Harry said after a long, confused moment, "really early in the morning? To spring this on me, I mean. Can't I at least shower first?"

Draco froze, the soft expression seeming to be siphoned away so that something much harder could take its place. "No. No, I'd prefer an answer now."

"You could come with me?" Harry said. He reached out for Draco, who pulled away.

"So, you haven't thought about it," said Draco, setting his parchment to the side as he worked himself up into what was very obviously going to be a massive spin-out. "Or--or you have, and what you've thought is that I'm not--that you don't--fuck."

"What? No, I--"

"I'm good enough to shag," Draco said, now working himself up into such a high pitch that even the other Harry, still bleary-eyed with sleep, was beginning to look alarmed. "I'm good enough to have live with you. I'm even good enough to be seen with in public. But this--this is a step too far for you, isn't it?"

"Er, Draco--"

But Draco wasn't having whatever the other Harry meant to say. "If it's no, you can just say so! Instead of going off to the shower to think up a way to let me down gently--"

"I wasn't--"

"I don't need to be let down gently! You should have told me ages ago, if that was what this was. Then I wouldn't have--I'd have been able to--"

"Draco, I love you," said the other Harry.

"Not the way I thought you did, obviously! You won't even-- fuck--"

Draco got out of bed, wearing only his pants. A moment later, he had on robes--wrinkled ones from off the floor--and an expression that suggested he was going to cry for a very long time after storming off (but possibly only after hexing off various bits of Harry's anatomy).

He drew himself up. "Just so you know," he said, in a cool drawl that didn't quite mask the tremor underneath it, "I didn't actually want to get married to you, either."

The other Harry sighed. "Draco, shut up."

"I mean, who would? I was just--I was just checking. Making sure you hadn't gotten too attached. We might have gone on indefinitely the way we've been, if only you hadn't just proven your incredible contempt for--"

"Accio ring," said the other Harry loudly.

"--me..." Draco trailed off as a little box came flying out of the dresser on Harry's side of the room. "What the fuck is that?"

"Sorry," said the other Harry. "It was going to be a surprise?"

"It was?" Draco asked weakly.

"Yeah, I'm only telling you about it now to stop you breaking up with me. Can you come back to bed?"

Draco came back to bed. He looked shell-shocked, sliding back underneath the covers in his still-wrinkled robes.

The other Harry took him by the hand. "I was going to ask you next week," he said.

"Oh," said Draco.

"In public. Next Saturday night. Somewhere with a lot of people."

"Oh," said Draco.

"I hadn't sorted all the details yet, but it was going to be an enormous production."

"Oh," said Draco, who had by now gone pleasingly pink in the face, but somehow didn't look any less like crying. "I, um. I only asked you here because I thought you wouldn't like it to be a production."

"You would like it, though," said the other Harry reasonably.

"Oh." Draco seemed to think about this a moment, before he lit up and grabbed the other Harry by both hands. "You have to still ask me. You have to."

"Oh, yeah?"

"In public," said Draco. "With everyone we know there."

"Right," said the other Harry, grinning and a little red in the face. "Alright."

"Someone from the Prophet should be there, obviously. Someone from Witch Weekly, too. You'll have them tipped off that this is big."

"Sure."

"You'll invite my parents, of course. And your, um--the Weasleys, I suppose. Not all of them, please! But you have to make certain your ex is there."

"I'm not inviting Ginny to my proposal," said the other Harry.

"Not that I'd ever rub it in, of course. And it should be in a restaurant--a nice one. You'll do it after we eat."

"Right."

"You'll get down on one knee. Tell me how much you love me, that I'm incredibly precious to you, and so on, the only person you could ever have been happy with. You never really lived, before you met me, never knew what love truly was until we were together."

"I'm not going to lay it on that thick," said the other Harry, grinning even more.

"Then you'll say, 'Draco, love of my life, will you make me the happiest man in the world, and agree to marry me?'"

"I would be really happy," the other Harry conceded.

"I'm sure you would be," Draco continued. "Anyway. Then I'll say, 'Have you gone mad? Do you actually believe I'd marry you? What's the matter with you, Potter? Don't you know you're beneath me? I'm a Malfoy, what makes you think I would ever--'"

He looked like he probably would have gone on for a while, especially considering how wildly he was gesticulating, and that he'd hit a pitch-perfect sneer around 'Potter,' only that was when the other Harry burst out into hysterical laughter.

"Are you," he gasped, in-between howls, "actually mimicking yourself ?"

"Better than you could," said Draco snidely, and then he was laughing, too.

"Anyway," said the other Harry, when everything had quieted down, some minutes later. "Yeah. I have thought about it, you massive wanker."

*

Somehow, Harry felt he knew what this next memory would be before it settled around him; or maybe it was just that it wasn't very surprising, after all, to look around and see so many faces he knew, older than he remembered them and younger than they were. Some standing by the refreshments, variously flushed from however much they'd had to drink, others dancing. 

Out in the middle of the floor, Draco was dancing with the other Harry.

"I wish people would stop that," Draco huffed as a witch, whose name would most likely come to Harry if he thought about it long enough, walked away from them.

"Stop what? Congratulating us?" asked the other Harry. He wasn't looking at Draco, but rather at his own feet, which was exactly where Harry tended to look when he was dancing, too.

"Congratulating me. I swear half of them have given you their condolences," said Draco. "But no, I mean the 'I always knew you two would end up together' stuff."

The other Harry looked up, just long enough to nearly trod on Draco's left foot. "I know! What a bunch of rot."

"Right? I hated you in school," said Draco.

"Yeah, you were a bullying git. Couldn't stand your pointy face," said the other Harry, trodding on Draco's right foot.

"Yes. You were awful," said Draco. "There was a different set of rules for the Chosen One. You got away with everything. It was sickening, truly. The number of times you ought to have been expelled, but were lauded instead! And you were always the center of attention. Revolting."

"Thanks," said the other Harry.

"And you didn't like me," continued Draco. "That's a minor reason I had for hating you, mind. Well behind your stupid scar and your stupid Firebolt and your stupid..."

The other Harry, who'd looked back down at his feet during all this, looked back up. "Why're you stopping?" he asked, with a soft sort of grin Harry had never quite envisioned on his own face before. "Sounded like you were on a roll there."

"I, just," Draco said. "Don't start listing everything I got up to when we were at Hogwarts, alright? I don't want you putting yourself off this whole thing."

"Nothing could put me off," said the other Harry, and immediately trod on Draco's left foot again, and swore under his breath. "Why are your feet so hard, anyway?"

Draco sneered at him. It was a fairly nice sort of sneer, as far as such things went. "If you knew you were going to be required to dance with you, you'd take precautions too."

"Git," the other Harry said fondly, and from then on didn't bother looking at his feet. Funnily enough, he barely stepped on Draco's feet at all thereafter. "I have a confession," he said, a minute later, as they swayed together.

"You hated me at school because I didn't like you?" Draco asked hopefully.

"No, but I'm starting to think it wasn't a minor reason," said the other Harry, in a way that suggested he actually knew so, and had done for a while now.

"...So what's your confession, then?"

"That first night, at the pub," the other Harry said. "I wasn't actually trying to pull. I just wanted a little, you know, peace and quiet."

Draco, who could easily have been expected to flip out over something like this, just grinned, instead. "Well, I was trying to pull," he said. "So, I win."

"I don't think it's the kind of thing you win," said the other Harry.

"Says who? You didn't want to pull. I did. We shagged in the bathroom. Ergo, I win."

"Wait for it," the other Harry said. "I haven't told you the rest of my confession yet."

Draco scoffed. "Unless you're going to say we didn't actually get banned from the pub, and you only said we did to, I don't know, move our relationship to the next level or whatever..."

The other Harry had turned very red somewhere in the middle of this.

"You didn't," Draco breathed, looking absurdly delighted about this possibility.

"I didn't," the other Harry said. "We got banned. It really happened. It's just that my Muffliato wasn't as, er, solid as it could have been. You know, the last four or five times..."

"What?! How dare you."

"What was I supposed to do? You kept changing the subject every time I hinted you should come back to mine!"

"I can't believe this," Draco complained. "Our entire relationship, built on a lie."

"Oh, yeah?" the other Harry said, grinning pinkly at him, and with his glasses askew. It was probably quite difficult to take complaining seriously when Draco had just kissed him very soundly indeed.

"Yes. You fucking sneak. And here I always thought you were a Gryffindor," said Draco, and kissed him even more soundly this time.

*

The living room had a Christmas-y look to it, though with one less tree and roughly half as many ornaments whirring around it than there had been back in the December Harry had been here for. The Christmas owls, in particular, weren't in evidence, though Herbert was on the open window sill, stepping back and forth in a way that suggested he would go out flying if the snow, coming down heavily out the window, were ever to let up.

Draco and the other Harry were on the couch, Harry with a big stack of parchments on one end and Draco with his nose in a book on the other end. Draco's feet edged right up to the other Harry's thigh. Every so often, he'd try to put them all the way in his lap, but the other Harry fended him off easily every time.

Finally, after what seemed like a long while indeed, Draco made a little huffing noise, put his book to the side, and stared very hard at the other Harry, who tolerated this until he was finished grading his current essay or whatever, and then said, "Alright, what is it?"

"Who says there's anything?" asked Draco archly. "Maybe I just like looking at your face."

At this, the other Harry grew an expression of great interest, followed by one of regret, followed by a more determined sort of one. "We can in a bit. I've just got to, you know, finish these first."

"I don't want to shag, you idiot," said Draco, sneering in a way that seemed to make the other Harry's face go goopy and strange. "I want you to quit your job."

"I'm not quitting my job," said the other Harry, squinting at whatever was on the parchment he was reading off of, then counting something off on his fingers, then squinting at the parchment again.

"You should. You're terrible at it, I hear," said Draco. "The children deserve better."

"That's not what you told your parents last time we were over there."

"They like to believe I'm happy. It helps for them to believe you're a success," said Draco, and then, so earnestly he could only have been full of shit: "I've sacrificed a great deal for my parents' happiness, you know."

The other Harry snorted, and said something under his breath that sounded like, 'Yeah, right.'

"However," Draco said, sitting up a bit straighter, so that his feet were no longer poking the other Harry in the thigh, "there is a limit to the sacrifices I'm willing to make."

"Mm-hmm," Harry said.

"A hard limit," Draco clarified. "No need to snicker like you're twelve about it, either."

"You've got a point, yeah?"

Draco sighed. "Yes, fine. I'm bored."

The other Harry's eyebrows went up, but all he said was, "I can make you unbored, promise. Just as soon as I'm done with these."

"I don't mean I'm bored now. Now is nice," Draco said. "It's, just--you're at work all the time. And now you're doing all these overnighters--I don't know what you wanted to go and be Head of Gryffindor for anyway--"

"That's not what you told Minerva when she offered it to me," said the other Harry.

"How could I? You were made to be it. There's no one else near bullheaded enough to qualify, nevermind who's actually on the staff right now," Draco said. "Anyway, I, just--I get bored when you're not here, alright? And I'm--it's lonely. That's all."

"Oh," said the other Harry, surely having picked up on the actual real misery that seemed to lie somewhere underneath there. He set his stack of parchments to the side, and shoved his glasses up his forehead so he could rub at his eyes, and rubbed at his eyes. "I'm not quitting," he said with his glasses back on his nose. "Or stepping down as Head, either. We can figure something else out. I'll talk to Minerva on Monday, see if we can cut down on the overnighters."

Draco seemed to take this in. As he took it in, his feet snaked their way onto the other Harry's lap after all. "Alright," he said finally. "Thank you."

"Sure."

"And thank you especially for not telling me to get a job," Draco continued.

This was a mistake, which he seemed to know immediately, and which the other Harry obviously knew too. "Now there's an idea," he said approvingly.

"Oh, shove off."

"You'd be around more people," the other Harry said, taking hold of Draco's nearest foot and starting what seemed to be the exact same footrub Harry had been giving him for weeks now. "So you wouldn't be lonely. And you'd be doing stuff, so you wouldn't be bored."

"I would hate them all. And I would still be bored," Draco asserted, with a kick of his other heel against the other Harry's thigh. "Excruciatingly. I would probably die of it. That's if I didn't die of the humiliation of being expected to do actual labor first."

"It'd wear you out. You'd harass me less when I'm home. I love it."

"Fine," said Draco. "Alright. I'll get a job. I'll bribe my way onto the Board of Governors and harass you at work until you quit."

The other Harry rolled his eyes. "Alright, git."

"Or maybe I'll just threaten them until they sack you. How would you like that?"

"Get your dad to do it and save yourself a step," said the other Harry, seeming about reach for his stack of parchments again, and then freezing as he seemed to take what he'd said. "--Please don't get your dad to do it."

"I'll Floo him tomorrow," said Draco, so over-the-top sneerily there was little question he'd do any such thing. "Best pack your things, Potter."

A few minutes into the footrub on Draco's other foot, Harry said, "Maybe you could get a hobby."

"Reading is a hobby," said Draco from behind his book.

"Yeah, but all you read are trashy romance books," the other Harry said. "Maybe more variety would be good?"

"I don't read trashy romance books," said Draco, reddening, and promptly Vanished the book he had been reading.

"There's nothing wrong with it!" the other Harry hastened to add. "It's, just, they're kind of all the same thing, aren't they?"

"I have no idea what you could mean."

"They all sound the same to me, anyway. When you're telling me about them."

"That's because you don't listen," said Draco huffily. "There are plenty of differences between them. You're just not sophisticated enough to catch onto them."

"Alright," said the other Harry, the corners of his mouth doing a twitchy thing that seemed to suggest he was trying very hard not to smile. "Sorry to bring it up, then."

"You should be." Draco huffed a little more. "--Bugger."

"What?"

"I hadn't finished that one yet."

"Oh," the other Harry said. "Bet you I know how it ends."

"Bet you you don't."

"They have a massive row, then make up and shag a lot."

"No, actually," said Draco smugly. "What's-his-face was just kidnapped, and what's-his-other-face has got to go and rescue him."

The other Harry didn't point out that Draco not remembering the characters' names did rather a lot to prove his point. "Bet you they had a massive row before that, though. Like right before it."

"I," Draco said, reddening again. "You--!"

"Yeah?"

Draco kicked at the other Harry's thigh with his heel again. "Shut up, wanker. Just, shut up."

"Alright," the other Harry said, grinning too widely to even try to hide it now. "What do I win?"

"I didn't agree to that second bet," said Draco at once. "As to the first, that book is gone forever now. I don't remember what it was called, or what the cover looked like, or anything about it."

"Because it's just like every other one," said the other Harry, and then, "You write stuff like that sometimes, yeah?"

"No, I don't," said Draco, very unconvincingly and looking alarmed at this change in subject.

"Bet you you could do better. In your sleep, even."

"Oh, probably," said Draco, and looked very thoughtful in the moments before the memory faded out again.

*

"I'm bored," the other Harry announced, his head appearing in Draco's open office door.

Draco, at his desk and scratching madly away, didn't even look up until the other Harry had said so a few more times. "What was that?"

"You wanted me to be home at nights more. And now I am, and you're neglecting me," said the other Harry. "Ron and Hermione are getting tired of me going over there so much. I need attention. And, I dunno, watering."

"Why, are you wilting?" asked Draco absently, already looking back at his parchment.

"I have a black thumb," the other Harry said, doing a kind of hilarious wilting impression against the door jamb which Draco did not look up long enough to catch any part of. "And a case of blue balls. It's all really tragic."

Draco kept scribbling.

"Really tragic," the other Harry said again, and much more loudly.

Now Draco did look up. "Sorry," he said. "Sorry, I'm just...can you give me an hour? I need to wrap this up."

"I could, yeah, if I hadn't already given you an hour a couple times."

Draco looked around, then down at his desk and the great huge stack of parchment there. "You've been wanting to read it, haven't you?"

"Er, yeah, but you said--"

"Here," Draco said, shoving the stack up to the edge of the desk. "Take it, and leave me alone while you go through it."

"Alright," the other Harry said, perking up greatly. He took a button out of his pocket and Transfigured it into a bean bag, which he set down on the floor next to Draco's chair. He then sat on it, and leaned against Draco's desk. "Is this alright?"

Draco didn't say anything, so it really must've been.

*

This memory dissolved into the next with little more than a jump in frame. The other Harry was now leaning against Draco instead of Draco's desk; the stack of parchments that had been in his lap had migrated to the floor. He seemed to be on the last page of it, and set it aside with the rest.

"Well?" asked Draco, stopping his scratching the moment this had occurred, but looking at the other Harry sideways instead of straight-on. "What do you think?"

The other Harry seemed to consider this for a moment. "Rubbish," he said. "Absolute rot, honestly." This hung there for a long moment before he added, "Where's the rest of it?"

"Give me one bloody hour," said Draco testily.

*

Draco was sat in his Leaning Chair, scratching away. Mail, this time, Harry thought, judging by all the other times he'd watched him sit there in the very same way. Sometime in what must have been the last few years, his hairline had started its retreat, so that he looked almost like the Draco Harry had come so resistingly to love.

From the drawing room came a sizzling sound, followed by the other Harry's voice: "I'm home!"

"Yes, very good," Draco said, and started scratching faster. He finished up his letter a minute later, then looked up and frowned. "Harry?"

He got up and went into the drawing room, where the other Harry was standing, one foot still in the fire, which was helping things out by patiently staying green. He had an opened letter in his hand--a stamped, postmarked letter, and on paper instead of parchment--and was staring down at it.

"Harry?" Draco said again.

"I've had a letter," said the other Harry, perhaps a bit unnecessarily.

"I see that."

"From my cousin," the other Harry added.

"Him?" Draco said, with an expression that definitely wasn't a sneer, but definitely did involve curling his lip in a not at all nice way. "Bugger him."

"Can't, too busy buggering you," said the other Harry, somewhat distantly. "It came at Hogwarts today. I guess he wrote it a while ago? Back in June, it just took a while to make it to me. I wanted to wait til I was home to open it in case it was..."

Draco seemed to wait to see if the other Harry would say more. When this didn't happen, he said, "What does he have to say for himself? If it doesn't involve a great deal of groveling, you're going to shove that letter straight into the--"

"I guess he, er, got married too," the other Harry said. "A while before we did, it sounds like. And, um. His wife died last year."

"And?"

"And he's got a daughter. She's six."

"And?"

"She turned the cat green one day. The next she fell off the neighbors' trampoline she wasn't supposed to be on, and bounced from the ground back over the fence. A lot of other little stuff, before that. He's pretty sure she's got magic," said the other Harry, in a tone that said he thought a lot of things about this, and one of them was that Dudley was right in this assessment of things.

"And?"

"He wants to know if I can help. If I'm willing to."

"And?" Draco asked, and where at first he'd sounded impatient with this, now he sounded a lot more resigned.

"I've got a niece," the other Harry said. "Of course I'm going to help."

He looked up from his letter now, staring stubbornly at Draco like he expected to have an argument about this.

He didn't get one. Draco just sighed, and said, "If she's your cousin's daughter, that actually makes you first cousins once removed. Honestly, Harry."

*

There came a series of more nice memories. Meeting Deidre and Dudley, going over to their house and having them come over to Hummingbird Lane; visits to the zoo and the cinema and Diagon Alley. Things seemed very awkward at first with Dudley, but great right away with Deirdre, so that the awkwardness was overcome within just a few memories of Dudley stumbling over Harry being married to a man, and Draco being so cool and drawling that he might have been a parody of his father.

*

For one awful, jerking moment, Harry thought he must have come to the end of the memories Draco had put aside for him.

Draco was sitting in a plastic hospital chair. The other Harry, for his part, was lying in a hospital bed. It could have been St Mungo's, except for the beeping monitor off to the side, and the plastic wires that seemed to be attached to him.

Almost before Harry had finished making this assessment, the other Harry's eyes cracked open, very slightly. "Wha?" he asked. "Wher'amI?"

"You're in hospital," Draco said, sitting up straighter and seeming to tighten his grip on the other Harry's hand. "A Muggle one, so watch what you say. For example, don't say 'Muggle.' Someone might overhear you, and we can't have that. Alright?"

"'Right," mumbled the other Harry.

"You were just in theater," Draco said. "It had to be here, the knife that stuck itself between your ribs was cursed. Really cursed, they couldn't get it out by magical means. It wouldn't even--they couldn't even remove it by hand, it resisted any magical interference at all, including attempts at nonmagical removal by magical persons." Apparently Draco didn't have to watch what he said in possible earshot of any Muggle doctors or nurses. "There was nothing for it but to bring you here. Muggle theater takes a long time, you were in for hours and hours--but it seems to have gone well. There's a team of Obliviators coming later to finish cleanup. Some Healers too, they'll decide whether the Muggle doctors ought to go in again, or whether you can go on and be transferred back to Mungo's. They ought to be able to finish cleaning you up there--you probably won't even have a scar, they've apparently come a long way in curse scars in the last few years."

Draco's voice seemed to crack on the word scar, and a couple times thereafter, too. The other Harry, lying there with what seemed like all of his hair plastered to his forehead, didn't seem to notice. "Right," he said again, after a minute or two. A minute after that, he managed, in a slow and labored way, "Why're you here?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Draco asked. "You're very drugged, by the way. All duped up on morphing, I hear. Apparently it can make you a bit strange. Forget things, stuff like that."

"No, thassnot," the other Harry managed, after having taken this in to a greater or lesser extent. "Thassnot what I--why're you here, Maffoy?"

Draco's face did a startled thing, then a thinking thing. Finally he said, seriously but not like he was very worried about it, "We're married, Harry. We've been for eight years."

The other Harry grinned, so suddenly and sweetly it may as well have been a slap to the face. "Really?" he asked.

"Really," said Draco. "And don't think you can get out of the row we're set to have by making eyes at me. I promise you it won't work. What were you thinking opening that package?"

The other Harry very obviously cared about none of this, if he even understood it. "Couldn' even get you t'go out w'me," he said. "How'd'I ge'you to marry me?"

"Loads of begging," Draco said. "You went down on your knees and everything. Pity drove me to agree, I'd planned to run off with Charlie Weasley before then. Do you think you'll remember this conversation? Because honestly, this is getting absurd. We've got to talk about putting more protections on the house. Better mail charms to start with, obviously. Ones that can identify whether the sender listed on a package is actually the person who sent it. I know you don't want us to be under Fidelius, which is fine, I don't want to be either--but we really do need to be Unplottable, after this. I'm putting my foot down on that one. I'm also thinking we should have something on the Floo, there's this new spell I've heard of...Harry, are you still listening? Harry? Ugh, fine, I'll tell you again when you're awake again."

*

It was unclear, at first, why this next memory should involve Draco and the other Harry helping Dudley into one of the second-floor guest rooms. They went back downstairs, after, and into the kitchen, where there was tea to be had and a table to sit at while having it.

"How is he?" asked the other Harry, in a low voice suggesting that very obviously drunk people who'd already been snoring by the time they'd tiptoed away might still somehow overhear things happening a floor below.

"No idea," Draco said. He was very flushed, probably not just from half-carrying Dudley up the stairs. "We didn't really talk about feelings or anything, you know. It was more about what magnificent bastards our fathers were."

That did kind of sound like talking about feelings, Harry thought.

The other Harry said, "That does kind of sound like talking about feelings."

"If you say so," said Draco semi-snidely, and picked up his cup, not drinking out of it but holding it close enough to his face that he could breathe in the steam rising off it. "To be clear, my father was magnificent. His was a bastard. As for this tea, it's terrible."

"You haven't even tried it," the other Harry pointed out.

"No, but it's not more Firewhisky, and that makes it awful," said Draco.

"I guess," the other Harry said. He took a sip of his own tea, then made a face, possibly because it really was terrible, or possibly for some other more invisible reason. He looked at Draco for what seemed to be a long time indeed. There was a very strange expression on his face while he looked, a thoughtfulness that seemed to grow strangely soft, another of those things that seemed not to change so much as it did to deepen. Finally, he said, "I've been thinking."

"Oh no," said Draco mockingly. "We can't have that."

"About something serious. That I'd like to talk about," the other Harry clarified.

Draco's eyes narrowed as he peered at him. "Oh no," he said again. "Fuck. What's going on? Tell me you didn't get yourself cursed again--"

"Not bad serious!" said the other Harry quickly. "Maybe good serious?"

"What is it?!"

"Or nothing-serious. It doesn't have to be anything if you don't, er, want."

"If you don't tell me what we're talking about by the next time you open your mouth, I'm going to cast something at you," Draco threatened. "I can't promise what, but it'll be unpleasant."

"Alright," said the other Harry, and then, as Draco opened his mouth again (probably to point out that this still didn't count as explaining), he blurted, "I've been thinking maybe we could try having a baby?"

Draco's mouth stayed open for a couple seconds, then closed. Then he said, very quietly, "What?"

"Maybe we could have a baby?" the other Harry said. "You know, together? It'd be a little of me and a little of you? That kind of baby?"

"Oh. Yes, please," said Draco.

"The thing is, you'd have to be the one to actually have it," the other Harry said, pretty clearly committed to finishing his thoughts now he'd got started on them.

"Yes, please," said Draco again.

"I don't think I could...I mean, I could do it, probably, but it'd be...really bad, you know, because of...I don't think I could handle it."

"Did you hear me say yes just now?" said Draco. "Because I did. I even said please, at least the once."

"And I know for sure I couldn't handle it for that long. So if we're going to talk about it, you ought to know that's what we're talking about. And it's fine if you don't--wait, really?"

"Yes. And do you know why?" asked Draco, leaning forward.

"Er," said the other Harry, now flushed so red he, too, might have just returned from a night of drinking over dead fathers. "Either you really want to, or you're too drunk to be having this conversation?"

"No," Draco said. "It's because when someone asks me if I want to do something I would in fact desperately like to do, I immediately say yes. Not, 'can we talk about this later.' Not 'please can I shower first.' Not--"

"Alright, alright, you git," said the other Harry, now grinning very widely. "How about we check in about it again in the morning, yeah?"

Draco sniffed. "If you must. Just so you know, it'll be a yes then too."

"I really hope so," said the other Harry, grinning more. "Just so you know."

*

"Draco?"

Draco was in their room, in bed, curled up tightly beneath the covers. He was breathing very hard, and had his face pressed into his pillow.

"Draco? Are you at home?"

The other Harry, meanwhile, was somewhere else. Pretty close and getting closer, from the way his voice had sounded this time. The door creaked open, and his head peeked in.

"Draco--oh, fuck," he said, glancing in an assessing way around the room, which, when Harry did it too, turned up a small, empty bottle of something purplish atop Draco's dresser, as well as a slightly larger, also empty bottle of something greenish, and a half-empty bottle of something orange-y. "You were supposed to wait til the weekend to take those."

"Yes, thank you," Draco snarled, his wet face coming away from the pillow long enough to shoot the other Harry a hateful look. He put his face back in the pillow and said, in a more muffled, miserable way, "I thought if I did it today, I'd be recovered enough to start trying on the weekend."

"If I'd done this, you'd call Ron to tell him I'm at risk of dying of stupidity, then threaten to kill me yourself to spare your nerves," said the other Harry, sort of dryly but really more worriedly than it was that first thing.

Draco made a sound into the pillow, half a groan and half a sob. "This is the first really stupid thing I've done," he said, eliding most likely  everything he'd done in his life until the age of 18 or so. "I deserve for you to --fucking God-- give me a pass, and I expect you to."

The other Harry came over to the bed, still looking worried, but also determined, now. He swiftly stripped down to his pants, then lifted up the covers and slid into bed behind Draco.

"Is this alright?" he asked, and wrapped his arm around Draco's middle, and pressed his front to Draco's back. "They said, you know, skin to skin contact..."

"It's fine," Draco said wetly, his face still buried in the pillow. "It's--maybe a little better, I don't know."

"Alright," the other Harry said, his hand moving under the blanket, rubbing up and down Draco's side. "It's alright."

It pretty clearly wasn't alright. A minute or two later, Draco groan-sobbed into the pillow again, and then started flat-out crying, heavy gulps that left Harry cold inside. What the other Harry was doing now was what he should have done, he knew, abruptly and with no room for doubt...only it was too late, Draco in the attic must have been hours ago by now...

"It's alright. It's alright," the other Harry kept on saying, at first soothingly but then more and more worriedly, until the worry seemed to be all there way. "Do you want to take something for the pain?" he asked. "You can..."

"No," Draco said. "I'm growing a new fucking organ, it's supposed to hurt. Other potions might interfere with it, and then we'd have to do the whole thing over..."

"Okay," said the other Harry again, seeming to press in closer beneath the blankets, like if he wrapped himself completely around Draco that might help.

For a minute, Draco almost seemed a little better, or at least a little quieter, cut-off grunts into the pillow instead of other, louder things. Then out of nowhere he dissolved into sobbing again, even worse than before.

The other Harry broke. "You don't have to," he said, and now he was in tears too. "You don't have to do this, you don't have to hurt yourself like this--"

"Yes I do, yes I do, I want to," Draco interrupted, very thickly. "I've never --fuck-- wanted anything more in my life, it's, just--it'll pass, they said at most a few hours and the worst of it will pass. Alright?"

"--Alright," said the other Harry. "If you're really sure."

Draco didn't say anything else to this; he was crying again, more quietly or at least more muffled this time. The other Harry pressed in even closer to him, kissed the back of his head.

"I want it too," he said, in a low, rough voice. "I want it too. I've never wanted anything as much as I want a baby with you. God, I fucking dream about it, it's all I think about every day. You're so brave," he said, kissing Draco's shoulder, now. "You're so brave, I could never do this. What you're doing, I couldn't have another person growing inside me, not even it if were someone new, someone who was ours. Thank you," he said, running his hand up and down Draco's side again as Draco's crying picked up and died down and picked up again.

How long it lasted, Draco crying, the other Harry telling him these things, Harry didn't know. It was all too personal, all something he didn't have any business seeing. It went on for a while longer, and ended before it was over, the memory dissolving in place of the next.

*

"Everything looks splendid," said the Healer, looking very chipper.

Draco was still a little pale, the other Harry hovering next to him in a way that suggested anyone who so much as gave him the side-eye would have his wand pointed at their face next. They both brightened on hearing this.

"Your womb is well-formed and correctly placed," the Healer went on. "As importantly, all the tests indicate you're both fertile, and compatible with your husband. Of course we expected as much, but it's always a relief to be sure."

"It certainly is," Draco said. "Can we start trying immediately, then?"

"Yes," said the Healer. From her pocket she withdrew a round object, marble-sized and a cloudy white in color. She cast something at it, and the cloudiness began to swirl around inside it. "Since you won't have a menstrual cycle, you'll track your fertility through this," she explained. "The less fog you see, the more likely you are to conceive. If the color changes to a dull red or gray, that's an indication you should come in, as something may have gone wrong. If, on the other hand, the color changes to a bright yellow or green, you may be pregnant, or about to be; magical pregnancy isn't quite as straightforward as the other type, and false alarms are common. Still, yellow or green would be promising for future attempts."

"Alright, got it," Draco said. "Is there anything else, or can we go home and get started now?"

"It's pretty foggy," the other Harry said, rather red but also grinning from ear to ear. "Doubt starting on it now is going to do much."

"You can start whenever you like--though we do ask, yes, that you wait until you're at home, please," said the Healer, smiling brightly too.

*

"I'm sorry," Draco said dully. He was sat on the couch, looking down at the marble in his hand, tinged faintly yellow. This was, Harry saw at once, his Draco: or at least he was very near indeed to being the age he'd been when Harry had woken up next to him at St Mungo's four months ago, so that there was no telling the difference.

The other Harry was sat next to him, with an arm around his shoulders. "It's not your fault," he said. "It's probably me."

"It can't be all you every time."

"The job's half mine," the other Harry said. "So it's at least half my fault. If there even is a fault, and I'm not really sure there is?"

"You're just saying that so won't be half your fault," snapped Draco nonsensically. "It's been a year, Harry. And...it's been four times. People don't usually have that many false alarms."

The other Harry hesitated, in such a way that everyone else in the room could guess just what he was going to say before he actually said it. "Maybe we should stop trying," he said. "If it's going to be this upsetting all the time."

Draco's eyes flashed. He opened his mouth as if to protest this, then closed it again. Pressed his lips together, and narrowed his eyes, and finally said, "Do you still want to have a baby with me?"

"Er, yeah, but--"

"So do I. So we're going to keep on with it."

The other Harry seemed to consider this. Ran his hand down Draco's arm, plucked the marble out of his hand. "Don't I get a say?" he asked softly, looking down at it. "I know it's harder on you, but I'm in it too, aren't I?"

"--I suppose," Draco said. "I mean, of course you fucking are, we're in this together, what do you think's happening?"

"Right. So, maybe if we tried being, I dunno, more casual about it? I mean," Harry closed his fist, hiding the marble from sight, "not obsessing over this all the time. We could put it somewhere, I'm saying. Instead of checking it fifteen times a day, and after every time we have sex, we could just check every week or two? Don't say 'what if something goes wrong,' I asked the Healer and she said it's really sensitive to that. It'd take weeks of ignoring it to make it into an emergency. They spell it that way on purpose so people don't have to obsess."

"I don't obsess," said Draco, not really very convincingly considering he was currently prying the other Harry's fingers open to take the marble back. "I suppose I could put it somewhere. If it would make you feel better."

"It really would. It'd make me feel even better if you put it in, like, your Gringotts vault. You know, to really enforce the whole thing."

Draco scoffed. "I'm not going to ask the Goblins if I can please check my pregnancy status every week or two. I'll put it behind the not-so-secret panel, how about that? Then it'll be a little out of the way, but not too much."

"Yeah, okay," the other Harry said. "Just, don't check it too often, alright? You've been making yourself so crazy..."

"You mean I've been making you crazy," Draco sniped, but then sighed out heavily and put his head on the other Harry's shoulder. "I really wanted it to be this time," he said, so low it was hard to make it out.

"Yeah," said the other Harry, looking rather upset too now that Draco wasn't looking at him. "I really did, too."

*

Draco and the other Harry were snogging in the drawing room, next to the fireplace. The other Harry had Draco pressed against the wall there, and was sucking wet-sounding kisses into the side of his neck, while his hands slipped into Draco's robes, one going around to the back, and one reaching down the front.

"Fuck, wait," Draco said, pushing him away. "Hold on, we're going to be late if we keep this up."

"It's my party. At my parties the guest of honor is allowed to be late. Especially if they're getting one of their presents early," said the other Harry reasonably, and kissed Draco again, on the mouth this time, slow and sweet.

Draco kissed back, seeming to agree with this logic, at least until he didn't again. "No, really, we should at least attempt to be on time for once."

"Alright, alright," said the other Harry. "Maybe one more kiss first? To think about while I'm blowing out my candle and stuff?" Plaintively, he added, "It's my birthday."

"Oh, fine," Draco said, and possibly didn't expect quite as much of a kiss as the other Harry gave him, heated and fierce and total, and lasting at least a minute, so that when it ended, they staggered apart, both wide-eyed and breathing raggedly.

"Right then, we're off," the other Harry said cheerily, turning toward the fireplace.

"You--!" Draco said, pink-faced and possibly not as furious as he wanted the other Harry to believe he was. "You can't just--!"

"I can't what?"

"You know what!" Draco said. "Oh, sod your stupid party," he added, and grabbed Harry by the arm and turned him around, and gave back just as good as he'd got a few seconds ago, until they were both tugging at each other and gasping. They nearly sank to the floor in front of the fireplace before Draco murmured, "Maybe not in front of the Floo. Remember last time?"

"Oh, right," the other Harry said.

They moved stumblingly into the living room, in the end not quite making it to the couch; they were about there by the time they sank down onto the rug in front of it, close enough for Draco to reach out and steady himself on the middle couch cushion on his way down, but not close enough to land on.

Harry expected the memory to dissolve at any time, just as all the others did. He expected it as the other Harry reached into the front of Draco's robes, the rhythmic movement of his hand making it obvious what was happening there. He expected it as Draco got the front of Harry's trousers open, and pulled them and his pants all the way down his thighs. He expected it as Draco's pants, too, were got rid of, and his robes hiked up around his waist, as his legs wrapped around the other Harry. 

He was done expecting it by the time the other Harry began to move, on top of Draco and within him, kissing him and kissing him as he did, his mouth and his shoulder and his neck, his hand reaching between their bodies for more of that too-obvious motion...and Draco was kissing back, his hands running up and down the other Harry's still-clothed back, gripping his bare arse...and they both were murmuring things to each other, soft low words and laughs that had to be so, so private, that Harry desperately wished to hear and not to hear all at once.

After, the other Harry kissed Draco's neck again, a slow and nuzzling thing. "That was a really good one," he said happily.

"I should hope so, considering it was your birthday present," said Draco lazily, his face a blotchy, incredibly bright red.

There came a sizzling sound from the other room, followed by Ron's voice: "Oi, Harry! You coming, or what?"

"Er, we're coming," the other Harry called back. "Don't come over!"

Ron spluttered loudly enough to easily be heard a room away. "Put it away, mates, and get over here! It's a party!"

"Yeah, alright!" the other Harry said.

They got up and put themselves back together, then headed back toward the drawing room. In front of the fireplace, Draco hesitated. 

"You go ahead," he said. "I want to put on something clean, I think."

"You could try another Scourgify," the other Harry suggested.

"And feel disgusting for the rest of the day? I think not," Draco said. "Seriously, go. I'll only be a minute."

After the other Harry had gone through the Floo, Draco dashed up the stairs and headed, not for their bedroom, but for one of the guest rooms--the one he'd been staying in for the last few months. Other than a bed and a tall dresser across from the bed, it was empty. It felt it too, all these months ago, in that way a room does when it's slept in every so often, but left alone most of the time.

Draco walked swiftly over to the wall opposite the door, and tapped a section of it with the end of his wand. A square section of the wall opened up. He stuck his hand in and pulled out the marble. It glowed green, this time--not faintly, the way the yellow had in the last memory, but so brightly it almost hurt to look at.

Draco stood there for a long moment, just staring. Then he put the marble into his pocket, and Apparated. There was no sharp crack to be heard in the memory, and no squeezing dark. One moment, Harry was standing there with him; the next, he was in front of the Burrow where Draco had landed, watching him rush in the door. 

Draco went past everyone who tried to say hi to him without a word, past the banner whose letters occasionally got around to putting themselves in order to say 'Harry Birthday, Happy!' until he found the other Harry, who was laughing at something George Weasley had said.

"A word, please," Draco said, grabbing him by the arm and dragging him into the bathroom.

"Yeah?" the other Harry said.

For a moment, Draco froze. Then he said, lightly but also irritably, with a strain beneath so slight that Harry might not have caught it if he hadn't known what had just happened, "You've got to do something about your hair, Harry. It's an embarrassment. To you, but mostly to me. And you've got something--here--"

Draco rubbed the corner of the other Harry's mouth with his thumb to wipe away the imaginary something. He fussed around with his hair until it looked exactly the way it had looked when they'd come in, but enough time had apparently passed to claim otherwise.

"There," Draco said. "I won't be ashamed to be seen with you now."

"Yeah, right," said the other Harry, rolling his eyes.

*

"I'm afraid the earliest we can have a pregnancy confirmation appointment is at four weeks after they probable conception," said the witch whose head was currently in their fireplace. "If it was yesterday, then you're looking at 28th August, at earliest."

"I can't wait four weeks," Draco said. "It's much brighter this time," he added, brandishing the marble. "It's got to mean something."

"We haven't a hope of a positive test being definitive before four weeks," she said patiently. "Even then, your chances of a false positive are much higher than they'd be at eight or nine weeks. Magical pregnancies are different, shifty in their beginning. No matter how positive your chances, you both are and are not pregnant until you turn up positive at eight or ideally nine weeks, or negative from four weeks on."

The look on Draco's face suggested he more or less knew all of this, but had been hoping for a different answer. "It's just," he said. "I really need to know, this time. As soon as possible."

"I understand," the witch said, and sounded like she more or less did. Harry wasn't sure what he'd have done if she'd sounded a different way. Only that it would have killed him to know anyone had been an arse to Draco about this, even this long after the fact. "Why don't we go ahead and schedule your appointment? Then you can ask any other questions you may have about what to do in the meantime."

"I know what to do in the meantime, I've done it all multiple times already. I just--alright. Eight weeks is best, you said? Or was it nine? It's basically a sure thing at nine weeks, if my Mungo's tests are positive?"

"Yes," said the witch. "That would be the first week of October."

"Alright," Draco said again. "I can wait that long, I suppose."

*

Apparently, what Draco was doing in the meantime involved sitting in his office with his chin on his hand, alternating between staring into space dreamily, and staring the opposite of pointily down at the green marble, which was sitting in the middle of his desk.

At least that was what Harry thought until a Patronus seeped in through the closed window. A silver cat, graceful and sleek and somehow awful. It jumped onto Draco's desk next to the marble, and sat and curled its tail around its legs, and then said, in Minerva McGonagall's voice, "There's been an accident at Hogwarts. He's being taken to St Mungo's now."

Draco got up from his desk, tense and hard-eyed with worry. He pocketed the marble absently, and Apparated.

*

Harry expected to wind up at the Apparition point at St Mungo's again, another Apparation without the squeezing dark, the end of one Harry and the start of the next. Instead the scene dissolved, and no new one swirled in to take its place.

He was somewhere, though, dark but not squeezing, and for a moment couldn't think just where that might be. Then the living room started to take shape around him, not a memory swirling in but his eyes adjusting to a real place.

That one had been the last memory. He was done, he was back. It wasn't late morning or early afternoon or whenever it had been when he had put his head in the Pensieve. It was night.

He didn't know how long he stood there, feeling things, trying to sort through them. He felt empty. He felt full. He was grateful to have seen it all, he wished he'd never seen any of it. There was no order to be found there. There wasn't even chaos. It was all, just...too much, and not enough.

Draco, he thought, after a while. It was this thought that got him moving again, action instead of stillness. He went straight up the stairs, practically running up them, his legs so stiff after standing still for all those hours that he tripped on the third step up, and only grabbing at the banister kept him from falling.

Up the stairs and and up more stairs and up the attic ladder. It was empty there, and quiet; Draco had been there for however long he had been there, and now he wasn't.

Gone where? He probably hadn't used the Floo, he'd have had to walk past Harry with his head in the Pensieve to do that, and something in Harry was very certain he wouldn't have done; that if Draco had seen him that way he'd have sat himself in his Leaning Chair or on the couch, that he'd have waited for Harry to come out of it again...

So he might have Apparated somewhere, instead. Or maybe...

He checked in Draco's office, mostly because it was on his way back to the stairs. Also empty.

He went down a flight of stairs. Stood in front of the guest room Draco had been sleeping in for a few long minutes, wanting to knock but not quite daring to. Not knowing what he'd do if Draco answered, not knowing what he'd do if Draco didn't. He just, needed...

He just needed Draco. Whatever that even meant right now.

After a while, it occurred to him that if Draco was in there, he might actually be sleeping.

Harry cast Somnum Revelio in a low voice, and waited there to find out the results.

Draco's door started to glow. So, he was in there. The door glowed greener and greener, a true and bright hue, not that far off from the color the marble had been in Draco's memory. So he was sleeping, at least, and deeply. That had to be good, right? He hadn't slept in--Merlin, Harry didn't really have any idea. The naps had been helping, he thought, but he knew naps weren't enough.

Harry stayed there a while longer. Until the glow had faded away again, and all that was left was him. He, Harry, the one who was here now.

By the time he got to his room, the sky outside was grayer than it had been, lighter; he had stayed watching the Pensieve until it was not only late, but starting to become early again. It made sense, didn't it, when there'd been so many memories to watch, spanning so many years...

And he still didn't remember a moment of it. Not any moment he'd got to see, not any moment he hadn't. He could remember the Pensieve ones now, of course, but only from the outside...no matter how happy or sad or personal any one memory had been, he was on the outside of it. He was always going to be on the outside, now. Now that he knew what he had lost, he had an idea how much more there must be, under the surface of those nineteen years, more than half of which had had Draco in them. Now that he knew what he had lost, he knew there could be no way back in. It was too late. Maybe it was too late for everything else, too. Probably it was. Almost definitely.

Harry sat down heavily on the bed. He didn't know his hands were shaking until he looked down at them. He didn't know how loudly he was breathing until he realized that part only seemed loud because of how quiet the rest was, tears sliding out of him with no resistance like secrets under Veritaserum.

It was late enough to be early again. Harry got to sleep too, eventually.